After the Great Fire of 1901 “there seemed to be nothing left save a fringe of houses around the municipal periphery, like hair on a friar’s head,” reported H.L. Mencken in the Baltimore Sun. But Jacksonville got back on its feet quickly. Piers, docks, shipyards and terminals were quickly rebuilt. More than 13,000 buildings were constructed from 1901 to 1912. Architects flocked to the city, whose civic district was now virtually a blank slate. The most noted among them is Henry J. Klutho, who relocated to Jacksonville from New York in 1902. One of Klutho’s biggest claims to fame was the St. James Building, for nearly a century the home to Cohen Brothers department story, later May-Cohen’s and now City Hall.

The city still had its rail lines. Before the fire, Henry Flagler, a former Standard Oil partner of John D. Rockefeller’s, began buying small regional lines and in 1912 merged them into the Florida East Coast Railway. By the 1960s the city had become home to three major railroad lines: FEC, Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Coast Line.
During this era Jacksonville became a banking and insurance center. Barnett National was already a major powerhouse, and its success spurred Atlantic National, Florida National and others. One of Jacksonville’s first insurance titans was the American Insurance Co., founded by Abraham Lincoln Lewis. Later, when state law created a favorable environment for insurance companies, Jacksonville’s skyline became dominated by insurance-company logos: Prudential, Gulf Life, Independent Life and American Heritage Life. The U.S. Navy had a minor presence protecting the ports but did not have an official installation in Jacksonville until 1940, shortly before WWII. With the addition of two other bases, the Navy became a major employer as well as an economic force in the area.