Significance
Built in the late 19th century, the Windsor Hotel attracted adventurers and statesmen during visits to eastern Florida and for stopovers deeper into what was then the vast wilderness of the South.
Community
Several organizations were developed in the hotel's community rooms and on the sweeping colonnade along Hemming Park. Among these were the Women's Club of Jacksonville, which held its first meeting at the hotel in 1897, the Jacksonville Rotary Club, which made its start at the Windsor in 1912, and Kappa Kappa Gamma, which formed its Alumni Association at the hotel in 1942.
Reconstruction
In 1901, the Windsor Hotel burned down in a fire that ravaged most of downtown Jacksonville. The proprietors of the hotel set out to reconstruct, and bought out the neighboring land where the St. James once stood. They sold the land on condition that it would not be used for construction of a competing hotel.
Demolition
The Windsor Hotel was demolished in 1950 to make room for a parking lot. I. Morris, vice president of the Cuyahoga Wrecking Co., told the St. Petersburg Times in 1955 that the hotel had held the strangest treasure he ever found during a demolition: a subterranean room filled with illegal whiskey.
Today
While the Windsor Hotel no longer stands along Hogan Street, many walking tours of downtown Jacksonville pass through Hemming Park and alongside the Bryan Simpson Federal Courthouse, which occupies the land once home to the Windsor Hotel.
