It was April in the first year of a new century, 1900. It was one of those early spring days when every boy child in the town of Green Cove Springs just knew that summertime and lazy days of adventure, no shoes and no school were just around the corner.

Young buddies Philip Canova and George Haas met as usual at Mr. Haas’ photographic and taxidermy studio and began fiddling with their handmade box camera. George’s father had loaned them an old lens and they built the simple device.

The back workroom was a perfect hang out. Tourists and locals passed by on Walnut, some stopping to make a purchase or chat with Mr. Haas. When the voices grew louder and they could tell something was going on they slipped to the front door. People were stopped in the street looking back toward the river.

The air was smoky, ashes and the occasional hot cinder floated in the air. Fire. They grabbed the camera and lickity-split were in the street and running toward the dense smoke. No one could tell exactly what was burning, but they knew it was big.

Barely 200 yards away, the town’s landmark Clarendon Hotel was burning briskly.

Phillip took the first photo then they tore back to the shop to exchange the exposed plate for a new one so George could have a turn.

Every winter, the Clarendon House entertained hundreds of northern tourists trading freezing rain and snow for balmy Florida climes. The entire county benefited, especially the town of Green Cove Springs. Farmers, livestock breeders, and merchants depended heavily on the annual infusion of cash and jobs.

Built in 1871, The Clarendon was the largest, most posh and successful of the town’s hotels because the proprietors, Joseph Applegate and John Harris, shrewdly leased the exclusive right to market and distribute the famous sulfur spring water.

After George’s plate was securely back at the shop, the boys returned to the scene and collapsed, gasping for breath, on rolls of oriental carpets hotel employees had frantically thrown out of upper windows onto the dusty lawn.

The four-story building appeared fully engulfed with smoke coming from every window. The fire snapped and cracked as flames consumed her pine siding and frame rich with sap. Fed by hundreds of horsehair mattresses and rich fabrics, the fire burned so hot that it roared muffling the shouts of volunteer firemen.

Victorian women guests perched on salvaged possessions in fancy attire and wiped perspiration with one gloved hand while clutching a trembling parasol in the other. The hotel was a smoldering hulk when the boys made their way back to the shop.

Mr. Haas sold several copies of their photos to locals and tourists anxious to remember the hotel’s almost three decades of fine hospitality and the heyday of the St. Johns River grand resorts.