By: Alan Aptheker
Originally a farm on the banks of the St. Johns River, the area now known as San Marco was first called Oklahoma. Harrison Reed, a life long Oklahoman, was elected Florida’s governor in 1868. Reed’s sister, Margaret Reed Mitchell and her husband, railroad tycoon Alexander Mitchell, still in love with their native Oklahoma, built their Florida winter home, Villa Alexandria, in Oklahoma Style on 140 riverfront acres, and (oddly) named their new digs and surrounding area, “Oklahoma.” But in 1921, with the construction of the Acosta bridge, which connects San Marco to Downtown, industrialist Telfair Stockton bought 80 acres of land north of the Mitchell estate and the new “San Marco” subdivision name took hold. The name is based on the Piazza di San Marco in Venice, Italy, which had impressed Mr. Stockton on a European trek.