Mandarin Museum News

August 2026

Embrace the Mandarin Experience

Steamboat "May Garner" - Jacksonville, Florida. 1900 (circa). State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.

Dear Friends,

A certain phrase greets you in soft blue lettering each time you enter Mandarin Museum. Always the River. It blends seamlessly into a large image of the May Garner, plying the St. Johns as she did in the 1890s through the 1920s. The 100-ft. vessel carried passengers, mail, and freight each day with stops in Green Cove Springs, Fruit Cove, Orange Park, Mandarin, and Jacksonville. The May Garner was just one of many watercraft - whether steam, fuel, or human-powered - that for centuries gave individuals command of the waterway.

Always the River. It is the title of a poem written many decades ago by the late Jean Morrow, recounting the evolution of village life in Mandarin as dugout canoes gave way to steamboats and as the daily commute eventually shifted to dry land. Central to her writing was the idea that no matter who came to Mandarin or when, it was Always the River, that brought them here.

The St. Johns River sustained life in the literal sense just as it did in the cultural. The daytime breeze off the water determined the orientation of homes and their windows and hallways. Children with cane poles meandered barefoot along the riverbank. Gospel hymns carried just above the water's surface as congregations immersed their newest congregants just below.

And though the landscape has changed precipitously since Mandarin was last considered a village, Always the River remains an enduring theme. No doubt you've called to mind memories of your own since you began reading this newsletter. On September 17th, we'll gather for Mandarin Museum's 4th Annual Fundraising Dinner - Always the River presented by Yoga Den - an unforgettable evening celebrating the St. Johns River and the stories, history, and people that have shaped our community.

We are thrilled to honor our 2026 Always the River Award (aka The Golden Manatee) recipient, Lisa "The Boatanista" Almeida, co-owner of Freedom Boat Club of Northeast Florida, for being a tireless champion of our beloved St. Johns River. She has made it her business to get as many people as she can out onto the water, cultivating a continued appreciation within the community for our most precious natural resource.

Tickets for Always the River presented by Yoga Den are now available, and we hope you'll join us! Proceeds from our annual dinner provide vital support for Mandarin Museum's quality programming and operations. All information follows.

And as always, I'll see you at the Museum!

Warmest regards,

Brittany Cohill

Executive Director

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 | 𝟔:𝟎𝟎 𝐏𝐌

𝐁𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐚𝐤𝐬 | 𝟕𝟕𝟒𝟑 𝐀𝐥𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐒𝐭.

Throughout the evening, guests will enjoy a fun-filled program of speakers and entertainment chronicling the river's central role in the history and culture of Mandarin, including a very special performance by Mandarin Museum house band, The Orange Pickers.

A delicious dinner & dessert menu has been prepared by Chef's Garden and our dear friend Chef Dennis Chan of Blue Bamboo.

And our silent auction features uniquely Mandarin experiences not found anywhere else.

We expect a sold out evening!

Thank you to our Presenting Sponsor!

- Gold Sponsors -

- Silver Sponsors -

- Sponsors for Museum Volunteer Tickets -

Current Art Exhibition

According to Gamble: A Cartoonist's Take on American Public Life

On display through August 20, 2026 September 19th!

Ed Gamble (b. 1943) has called Mandarin home since 1980. That same year, he joined the Florida Times-Union as their first in-house editorial cartoonist, a position he held for three decades.

Known for his sharp takes, and often recognized as an independent thinker, Gamble’s visual rhetoric targeted everything from U.S. domestic and foreign policy to college sports, and everything in between. His tools were simple: ideas and a No. 2 pencil. One cartoon could take as little as 30 minutes. Those he colored with brush and ink might require no more than a few hours.

Gamble’s work has enjoyed national syndication and can be found in the permanent collections of five U.S. Presidential museums, the University of Tennessee, the University of North Florida, and Mandarin Museum. According to Gamble: A Cartoonist's Take on American Public Life invites visitors to consider how one artist’s voice helped shape public discourse surrounding the issues that defined his time.

Mandarin Frog Painting - FULL! Now booking for Sept. 5th!

Saturday, August 1

10:00 am

Museum Front Lawn

Purchase, paint, and take home your very own Mandarin Frog (or sea turtle). The cost is $22 + tax per person and all supplies are provided. To register, please email info@mandarinmuseum.org. Payment is collected upon arrival, cash or card. Limited walk-up spots may be available.

First Saturday @ the Museum

Saturday, August 1

10:00 am to 2:00 pm

Join Mandarin Museum the first Saturday of every month from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm when all historic buildings throughout Walter Jones Historical Park are open to the public. Admission is free!

The young and young at heart can pick up a free scavenger hunt at Museum Guest Services to complete as you visit the museum's exhibits and stroll along the park's paved pathways.

Learn more about the area's 19th-century past as museum volunteers greet you at the 1898 St. Joseph's Mission Schoolhouse for African American Children, the 1892 Losco Winery, the 1876 Barn, and the 1875 Webb-Jones Farmhouse.

The historic Mandarin Store & Post Office, located just down the road at 12471 Mandarin Rd., will also be open to visitors.

Meet the Maple Leaf Divers

Saturday, August 1

10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Maple Leaf Shipwreck Gallery

Meet the men who dove the Maple Leaf Shipwreck! On April 1, 1864, the Union steamboat Maple Leaf was sunk by Confederates in the St. Johns River just off Mandarin Point. In the 1980s, Dr. Keith Holland and his team of divers located and excavated the site. Now designated a National Historic Landmark, the nearly 3,000 artifacts they recovered have been entrusted to the State of Florida for preservation. Mandarin Museum displays many of these artifacts through a longterm partnership with the State Archives of Florida.

Dr. Holland and the Maple Leaf Divers will be in the gallery from 10:00 am to noon on Saturday, August 1st to meet with visitors. This is an informal, conversational-style event. Drop in to hear their story of discovery, recovery, and preservation.

The Art Yard at Mandarin Museum, Session 3

Sunday, August 9

1:30 to 3:30 pm

Museum Front Lawn

Registration is open for FREE children’s art classes at Mandarin Museum! Geared toward kids aged 8 to 15, sessions are held the second Sunday of each month and continue through April 2027. Register for some or all sessions. A few spots remain for each session.

The Art Yard at Mandarin Museum was developed and is led by Nora Morrow, rising senior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts and lifelong Mandarin resident.

For more info, including how to register, click HERE!

Third Thursday Lecture & Book Signing

Thursday, August 20

6 PM - Refreshments & Book Signing

7 PM - Lecture Begins

Mandarin Museum Galleries and 1898 Schoolhouse

Please join Mandarin Museum as we host our first lecture in our Fall 2026 Third Thursday Lecture Series, featuring Ennis Davis and Adrienne Burke, authors of the newly published Jacksonville’s Gullah Geechee Heritage.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event, with book signing before and after the lecture.

From the publisher:

Jacksonville, Florida’s Gullah Geechee heritage is an integral part of the city’s story.

Gullah Geechee people, descendants of west and central Africans forcibly brought to the southeastern coast of the United States, have retained many of their indigenous African traditions through architecture, food, culture, religion, and occupations. This legacy, combined with northeast Florida’s unique blend of Indigenous, French, Spanish, and English colonial history, has contributed to the African American journey in Jacksonville. Today, Jacksonville is the largest city in the federally designated Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which stretches from Wilmington, North Carolina, to St. Augustine, Florida.

Ennis Davis is a Gullah Geechee descendant, urban planner, heritage advocate, and writer. Adrienne Burke is a historian, urban planner, and heritage advocate. Together they own Community Planning Collaborative, a firm working to assist communities with heritage-based urban planning solutions. Drawing from archival photographs housed in the Library of Congress, State Archives of Florida, National Archives, Jacksonville Public Library, University of Florida, University of North Florida, the Ritz Theatre & Museum, and the Jaxson magazine, each image illuminates the unique stories of the past that continue to shape Jacksonville’s character today. The foreword is provided by Saundra Morene with the Jacksonville Gullah/Geechee Nation Community Development Corporation.

Educators, come visit Mandarin Museum at the Jacksonville Zoo!

Wednesday, August 26

Learn more about the various field trip and educational opportunities available to you and your students during the 2026-2027 school year.

Mandarin Museum will host a Volunteer Interest Meeting on Saturday, August 29th at 10:00 am.

Mandarin Museum offers many regular volunteer opportunities including positions at museum guest services, as a docent, and at special events. It’s the perfect place for anyone looking to make new friends while giving back to their community! Volunteer Interest Meeting attendees will receive a guided tour of the museum (including behind-the-scenes) and learn more about the volunteer program and its benefits.

Please email Mandarin Museum Operations Manager Ed Tudor at info@mandarinmuseum.org to RSVP or for more information.

Mandarin Museum is home to the largest institutional collection of Memphis Wood art. Featuring diverse media, more than 80 pieces include oil on canvas, watercolor on paper, woodblock prints, ceramic, sculpture, and the fiber and textile pieces for which she was most known.

When describing her creative process, Memphis once remarked, “If things get too sweet…I put in some clang-bang, some dissonance.”

Her words came to mind recently when Martha Walters generously gifted a large mixed media Memphis piece to Mandarin Museum in honor of her parents, David and Eleanor McCain. Martha's father was a friend and colleague of the late Ira Koger, who among many things was a prominent and devoted patron of the arts in Jacksonville. David McCain acquired the piece from Koger in the early 1970s.

Thick layers of oil paint create an impasto texture as found objects made from tin and glass, and rocks adorn this stretched canvas measuring 54" high and 34.5" wide. Like so many of Memphis Wood's works, it is unnamed - or at least, its name is unknown to us. With no title to give insight, Museum staff and volunteers have taken turns speculating what the abstraction might represent. However, we could not even reach a consensus on whether the view is meant to be a cross section, aerial view, or an elevation. What do you see?

We are so grateful for the Walters and McCain families for their thoughtfulness in adding to our permanent collection.

Twenty years ago, Louise Everett was an exuberant little toddler, darting across the 1875 Webb-Jones Farmhouse front porch, hunting Easter eggs with her family.

Today, she is a history major at the University of North Florida who spent her summer interning with us in the archives. Part of her work included creating an additional installation in our Maple Leaf Shipwreck Gallery. The new display highlights the efficacy of certain conservation techniques used on waterlogged wood artifacts following their excavation from the shipwreck site in the 1980s.

In order to devise the content for the new exhibit panel, Louise reviewed primary and secondary sources, interviewed conservators with the Florida Division of Historical Resources and lead Maple Leaf Diver Keith Holland, and studied the current condition of treated artifacts.

Next time you're in Mandarin Museum, be sure to see her finished work in the gallery!

Families have been traveling from miles around to check out our newest Adventure Backpack - Wander Walter Jones! It's FREE to become an explorer for the day, discovering native plants, trees, birds, and pollinators throughout the Park. You even get to do your part to help our pollinator friends by planting native wildflower seeds in our new raised Children's Garden!

Stop in anytime during our regular hours (Tuesday - Saturday, 10 am - 4 pm) to start your own adventure!

Be a supporter of arts & culture in our community through the purchase of an annual membership! Every contribution made through the purchase of an annual membership enables us to fulfill our mission!

Mandarin Museum members at the Family Level and above automatically enjoy the benefits of NARM (North American Reciprocal Museum Association)! By supporting your favorite museum, you receive reciprocal member benefits at almost 1,500 museums, botanical gardens, aquariums, and more across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and The Cayman Islands. Simply show your Mandarin Museum membership card at participating locations!

Read 2026 issues of the Mandarin Newsline online now!

This free newspaper allows Mandarin Museum to share history, events, and programs with the public. The newspaper remains free to readers due to the robust local advertising. Please visit, shop, and eat at those businesses who support the community in this way.

Until next time, find a way to get involved alongside your friends and neighbors. Our friends and neighbors over at the Mandarin Garden Club have two wonderful opportunities upcoming!

Please contact them with any questions.

Thank you to all our community partners!

A thriving creative economy enhances the quality of life for us all. Supported in part by the Merit-Based Cultural Service Grant Program, administered by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville with funding from the City of Jacksonville and our elected officials, we extend our gratitude to all partners who make this possible.

OUR MISSION: Mandarin Museum & Historical Society shares the stories of Mandarin's history, culture, and natural resources by providing engaging programs that educate, entertain, and inspire.

VISIT. JOIN. VOLUNTEER.

Mandarin Museum & Historical Society

904-268-0784

info@mandarinmuseum.org