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Mandarin Museum News
July 2025
Embrace the Mandarin Experience
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Dear Friends,
Happy Independence Day from Mandarin Museum! We hope you are enjoying this festive day with friends and family. And while Mandarin Museum is closed in observance, we are happy to reach your inbox with our monthly installment of unwavering gratitude for our nation, our community, and the people in it.
If you've meandered through Walter Jones Historical Park and up to Mandarin Museum recently, you've noticed our patriotic adornments. Each year in July, beautiful American flag bunting appears on the Museum's front porch courtesy of board member Gabriele Dempsey. Maybe you've encountered new museum volunteer Joe Michala in the parking lot, tirelessly cleaning out and removing yard waste and trash from its perimeter. Hopefully you've had the chance to say hello to longtime volunteers Patricia Ferron and her daughter Camaiya since their return from a brief hiatus. Although each of them play a different role, they all share a wonderful proactive quality, a deep sense of pride, and a commitment to creating the community they want to live in through relationship building and care for our neighbors, environment, and public spaces. They - and all our volunteers - not only embody Mandarin Museum's values, but also the American spirit.
We resume our normal hours on Saturday, July 5th. Learn more about our nation's history through the lens of Mandarin, Florida. Incredible things happened here. Remarkable people traversed the terrain. All historic buildings in the park and the historic Mandarin Store & Post Office will be open from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm with museum volunteers inside to welcome you. Admission is free!
In addition, scroll on to read about our other upcoming events and news.
Until then and as always, I'll see you at the Museum!
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----Brittany Cohill
----Executive Director
| | Left to right: Patricia Ferron, Camaiya Ferron, and Joe Michala. | | |
Kathy Stark’s “SEE JACKSONVILLE” is on display now through July 26th.
SEE JACKSONVILLE features Stark’s original acrylic gouache on panel pieces that inform her popular series of 1930s WPA National Park Service-inspired posters of North Florida parks. Each work was designed and painted in the style of silk-screened NPS posters created by The Federal Arts Project poster division during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program.
| | As seen in a recent issue of Jacksonville Magazine! Click here to read online, story begins on page 70. | |
First Saturday @ the Museum
Saturday, July 5th
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 will be open to the public.
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.
Admission is free.
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No Mandarin Frog Painting in July - Sign up now for August!
Saturday, August 2
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. Advanced registration is required, payment is due upon arrival to the event. To sign up, please email info@mandarinmuseum.org.
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No Meet the Maple Leaf Divers in July - the Divers are enjoying the holiday weekend with family - join us in August!
Saturday, August 2
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 2nd to meet with visitors. This is an informal, coversational-style event. Drop in to hear their story of discovery, recovery, and preservation.
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Exhibit Opening Reception
Thursday, August 7
6:00 to 8:00 pm
Mandarin Museum
Join Mandarin Museum as we debut our next art exhibit, Vestiges of Historic Mandarin: En Plein Air. This juried exhibition is in partnership with the First Coast Plein Air Painters and will be on display August 7th through October 25th.
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Fall 2025 Lecture Series Kickoff
Thursday, August 21
6:00 to 8:00 pm
Mandarin Museum & 1898 Schoolhouse
In partnership with the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, Mandarin Museum is pleased to host "Roots & Routes: Tracing Gullah Ancestry from Edisto to Florida" with Gullah Historian Elaine Ford Jackson & Author Greg Estevez. Refreshments will begin at 6:00 pm inside Mandarin Museum. The presentation will begin at 7:00 pm in the 1898 St. Joseph's Mission Schoolhouse for African American Children. Mark your calendars now for an evening of storytelling and practical information regarding Black genealogy research.
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Mandarin Museum's 3rd Annual Fundraising Dinner: Always the River presented by Yoga Den
Thursday, September 25
6:00 to 9:00 pm
Blue Bamboo Canton Bistro
10110 San Jose Blvd.
| | We anticipate a sold out event. | | |
Mandarin Museum & Historical Society is thrilled to host its 2025 annual fundraising dinner on Thursday, September 25th at Blue Bamboo Canton Bistro. With a theme of “Always the River,” it will be a true celebration of what has been foundational to our love for the community and its history - the St. Johns River!
The evening begins at 6:00 pm with Mandarin Museum’s Board of Directors welcoming guests for cocktail hour and the opening of the silent auction. The fun continues as Chef Dennis Chan presents a custom curated four-course menu. Throughout, 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 “Always the River” musical performance by museum house band The Orange Pickers. Mandarin Museum will also bestow its inaugural Always the River Award on the 2025 honorees for their role in ensuring the St. Johns River remains in the hearts, minds, and hands of the community.
Our 2025 Always the River Award recipients are Dr. Keith Holland and his St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions, Inc. team who dove and excavated the Maple Leaf shipwreck site. Team members include: (pictured left to right, back row) John Pugliese, Bobby Lunsford, Steve Michaelis, and Ron Gebhard. Not pictured are Larry Tipping, Paul Kramer, and Lee Manly. (Lee Manly will be honored posthumously.)
| | The Maple Leaf Divers, posing in front of artist Julie Fetzer’s floor-to-ceiling map in Mandarin Museum’s exhibit showing the location of the Maple Leaf shipwreck site. | | Thank you to our 2025 Presenting Sponsor, Yoga Den! | | Sponsors for Museum Volunteer Dinner Tickets | | Mandarin Museum's archive is a "living archive." It is dynamic and participatory. It preserves and honors Mandarin's past, a past documented through continued community engagement. | | Recently, author Tim Gilmore stopped by the museum to sit down with longtime Mandarin residents Vina Schemer and Rosemary McCorkle. As the women reminisced about days spent with their late artist friends Memphis Wood and Charlie Brown, Tim took inspiration from their recollections and put his pen to paper. Another story about Mandarin's unique character (and characters) was born. | | |
Our dear friend and photographer Olis Garber was on hand to capture it all. Visit Mandarin Museum's YouTube Channel to watch the full interview.
Tim Gilmore also authored an insightful piece on Mandarin's Losco family and the Losco Winery Log Cabin, now residing in Walter Jones Historical Park. Click the picture below to read more!
| | Frogman has loaded up his cabinet in the Museum Shop with some fun new concrete creatures! Our favorite has to be the manatees, inspired by our real life manatee friends frequently spotted off County Dock Pier. | |
Be a supporter of arts & culture in our community through the purchase of an annual membership! Benefits at the individual, family, and patron levels include free guided walking tours of Walter Jones Historical Park, reciprocal benefits at other museums across the nation, discounts in our Museum Shop, and more!
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 2025 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.
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...enjoy the natural beauty all around us!
This gorgeous barred owl was spotted about a half mile from Mandarin Museum. If you walk the park in the evening, you may hear their distinct calls, a range of hoots that sound like, "who-cooks-for-you? who-cooks-for-you-all?" or the ever-intriguing "monkey call." Click here to visit the National Audubon Society and listens to examples. Duval Audubon Society has compiled a list of resources showing recent sightings of barred owls and various bird species across Northeast Florida.
| | More ways to stay up-to-date! | | | |
Thank you to all our community partners!
Mandarin Museum is supported, in part, through the Cultural Service Grant Program administered by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville and funded by the City of Jacksonville.
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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
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