All language subtitles for Mysteries.of.the.Abandoned.Hidden.America.S03E04.1080p.WEB.h264-FREQUENCY_track3_[eng]

[narrator] A rusting,
mining town in Arizona,

where a global conflict
took its toll on the nation.

This is where
the Great War was fought
in United States.

This was the battlefield.

[narrator] A dilapidated
Colorado homestead

unlike any other.

To survive,
they turned to infiltration,

and espionage.

[narrator] And a forgotten
Florida venue

which hosted
a galaxy of stars.

There was one blind
piano playing teenager

who would change
the musical landscape.

[narrator] Scattered across
the United States

are abandoned structures

and those who
know their stories.

These forgotten ruins
reveal the past of this land

and its people.

These are the secrets

of hidden America.

[dramatic music playing]

In the Mule Mountains
of Arizona,

one boomtown saw
industrial rebellion
stamped out

in the most
brutal way possible.

[dramatic music playing]

[man 1] This was
one of the largest
criminal hacks

to take place
in the United States.

People were rounded up

and brought to the scene
of the crime here.

[man 2] We are close
to the Southern border.

Just a stone's throw away
from Mexico.

[man 3] This is
beautiful country but it's
also very difficult country.

This is not a place
that you wanna strike out
on your own.

[woman] In this steep gulch,

there's a town
with buildings climbing up

the sides of the
surrounding mountains.

[narrator] The remains
of disused mines

litter the landscape.

[man 2] You have
this massive open pit,

you have tunnels everywhere,

it would have taken
a massive team of people

to keep this place
running on a daily basis.

[narrator] This town
holds a terrible secret

about what happened
to thousands of its workers.

It was just a very scary time.

They took them
in the cattle cars and said,

"Don't come back,
you'll be killed."

[man 2] They're hauled away
from their families.

This is the most
un-American thing

that I can possibly think of.

[narrator] Rina Valdez's
family came to Arizona
over a century ago.

And these tunnels
were well-known
to one of her ancestors.

[Valdez] It's pretty eerie,

kind of imagining
what my grandfather

felt like going
to work everyday.

And if it ever
was scary for him.

Arizona is known
as the copper state.

And that's because of the
huge deposits of copper there.

[narrator] The rapid pace
of development
across the country

in the early 1900s,

was putting copper
in high demand.

[man 3] By 1900,

cities across America
were building power grids.

All of this new infrastructure
required wires.

And the wires
were made of copper.

[narrator] In this
mining town,

one company was in charge.

[man 2] The Phelps Dodge
Corporation is the largest
employer in town.

But they didn't just
own the mine,

they also owned the town
in many ways,

because they owned
the newspaper,
the hospital...

They owned everything.

[narrator] In the early 1900s,

this was the most productive
copper mine in Arizona.

This is the Copper Queen mine
in the town of Bisbee.

But great
industrial productivity

came at great human cost.

[Valdez] My great grandfather,
what we know of,
he came from Mexico,

and married my grandmother.

He ended up in Bisbee
working in the mine.

It was very unsafe.

People died in the mines
and were replaced
very quickly.

But it was something they did
to provide for their families

and to survive.

[man 1] Safety conditions
were poor.

Especially when
the pneumatic drills
started to be used.

Workers were breathing
rock dust.

So it was like
smoking several packs
of cigarettes a day.

[McRobbie] The
Mexican-American workers
were also fed up

with the discriminatory
practices they faced

at the hands
of their supervisors.

They were paid less,
treated poorly,

and routinely overlooked
for promotions.

[narrator] Having had
enough of substandard pay
and working conditions,

many of Bisbee's foreign-born
mine workers

signed on with the
Industrial Workers
of the World union.

And talk quickly
turned to strikes.

The mine owners
were prepared for retaliation.

[Meigs] The sheriff in Bisbee,
a guy named Harry Wheeler

was a real piece of work.

He was the archetypal
Wild West sheriff.

And not the good kind.

He assumed that
he was the law.

[narrator] All of this
industrial agitation

was being stirred up
at the same time

as America was joining
the Allied forces
in World War I

and troops were
shipping out to Europe.

[Anderson] Within just a
short time after war was
declared in April 1917,

this country went berserk
with culture patriotism.

There's this pent up
warrior spirit that animates

a number of the people
that are there,

even the Sheriff himself.

[McRobbie] Harry Wheeler
was desperate to go to Europe

to attack America's enemies.

But he found a way to do it
without even leaving Arizona.

[narrator] An already
tense atmosphere

had been wound even tighter

with the interception
of a coded telegram

from the German foreign office

to the Mexican government.

[Meigs] This telegram
was absolutely explosive.

It was known as
the Zimmermann telegram.

It contained a proposal
from Germany

to the Governor of Mexico,

that if Mexico join
the war effort
on Germany's side,

Germany would help Mexico

reclaim some of the territory
in United States
that it had lost.

Bisbee was just a few miles
from the Mexican border,

and tensions were
further stoked.

[Anderson] A good part
of the labor force is Mexican.

And Harry Wheeler,
he believed that

Mexican workers were
stockpiling arms
and explosives,

which was absolute nonsense.

[narrator] The local
authorities' suspicions
of the foreign-born miners

increased as the workers
at the Copper Queen facility

officially went on strike
and walked off the job.

Sheriff Harry Wheeler decided
to take drastic measures,

almost destroying this town.

[Meigs] Sheriff Wheeler,
he organized a posse

of 2000 volunteers.

Essentially, a small army.

Now they were prepared
to, essentially, go to war

against the striking miners.

[narrator] The posse
went house to house,

rounding up those on strike
and their supporters

in Sheriff Wheeler's
domestic war efforts.

One miner,
and one posse member
killed each other.

But that was only
the beginning of the chaos
in Bisbee.

[narrator] The striking miners
were marched through
the streets at gunpoint

to Warren Ballpark.

Mike Anderson has
long studied this event

and aims to reveal
its secrets.

[Anderson] They were
marched in here,

and then they were
put into the grandstands.

And there were
about 2000 of 'em

and the grandstands
only held about 1500.

So they were packed in like
sardines in the grandstands.

[narrator] The mine owners
were there to make
a statement,

and they brought in
some heavy weaponry

to convince the miners
to go back to work.

The mining company's bought
five belt-fed machine guns

and placed them
in strategic locations
around the ballpark.

They were willing to
mow people down
if it got bloody.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In the middle
of World War I,

two thousand striking miners
in Bisbee, Arizona,

have been corralled
into a ballpark

by an armed gang
led by Sheriff Harry Wheeler.

When you consider
all of these forces at work,

it's a miracle that
Harry Wheeler and his posse

didn't kill every
damn one of them.

[narrator] The armed posse
of mine owners and loyalists

had the strikers
in their crosshairs.

[Anderson] Once they were
packed into these stands,

an effort was made to convince
those ordinary workers,

give them a chance
to recant, to repent,

to renounce the unions,
to be good boys,

and go back to work.

[Meigs] About 700 men
took them up on that offer.

The rest refused.

Sheriff Wheeler decided
he had to take
a drastic action.

[narrator] Sheriff Wheeler
had already decided what to do

with these stubborn miners.

[Morgan] Twenty-three
cattle cars were
brought to Bisbee

to haul off the members
in the union.

And these cattle cars,
some of them were
still covered in manure.

[Anderson] In the end,
1,186 men were loaded aboard.

Long train ride
in the middle of July.

Very unpleasant experience.

[narrator] The train headed
east towards New Mexico.

Eventually, at 3:00
in the morning,

it stopped in the middle
of the desert.

The miners were kicked out
of the cattle carriages,

two hundred miles from home,
and they were told

that if they return to Bisbee,
they would be killed.

[Morgan] And ever since
this time, it has been known

as the Bisbee Deportation.

[Meigs] Sheriff Wheeler
was making sure

that nobody that he deported
could get back into town.

[Anderson] And they kept
stacks of unsigned warrants,
John Doe warrants,

so that if a man came back,

they would tell him,
"Here's your choice.

You can either pick up
your stuff and leave

or, we're gonna
sign this warrant
with your name on it

and you're gonna get
90 days on the chain gang.

[narrator] Yet,
against the odds,

Rina Valdez's
great grandfather

who worked in this mine,

managed to sneak back
into town.

[Valdez] My great grandfather
came in in the middle
of the night.

He and probably,
several of my great uncles.

And they all came back
and told their wives.

They all went to Los Angeles.

And that's where they all
worked as longshoremen
for the next three years.

The families actually
returned to Bisbee

at the same time
three years later,

and all stayed here
from that point on.

[narrator] Many other miners
would not be so lucky,

and hundreds
would never return,

leaving friends, families
and livelihoods behind.

[Morgan] No one, in the end,
is prosecuted for the actions
that were taken at Bisbee.

The war and the war effort,

sort of, disguised
the entire event.

[narrator] In the aftermath,

news of the deportation
would not see
the light of day.

[Meigs] The story
was covered up.

The mining company
managed to keep this
out of the newspapers.

The teachers weren't allowed
to teach about it
in the schools.

[Valdez] That was kind of,
an eye sore to all
of the residents,

here in Bisbee,

whether it was
embarrassing to have been
put in cattle cars,

or whether it was embarrassing
to have been the people

who rounded them up
like animals.

[narrator] The miners
of Bisbee would slowly return

and copper would continue
to be extracted

until the mines shut down
after almost a century
of production, in 1975.

Yet, it would be
many more years

before this town could
confront its violent history.

It didn't become
a topic of public
widespread discussion

until the centennial in 2017.

[narrator] Over 100 years
since the Bisbee Deportation,

the town has made
a full recovery.

[McRobbie] Bisbee is
now a tourist town.

It's full of art
and creativity.

And if there's a model
for how a mining town
can get a second life,

it's Bisbee.

[Anderson] This is
small town America.
I think it is best.

I get up in the morning
and think to myself

how grateful I am to live
in this wonderful place.

[narrator] The Copper Queen
mine has also had
a second lease of life,

having reopened
as a tourist destination

where stories are still told
about the Bisbee Deportation.

[Valdez] I think it...
It's a relevant event that
continues to be relevant,

because of the history
that we're now making,

and the different things
that are happening
in our world

and things that can get
out of control very fast.

[narrator] Off a remote
highway in Colorado,

a ramshackled group
of buildings

holds an untold story
of the old West.

[woman 1] It's 12 miles
from the nearest town.

But when these huts
were built,

you might as well have been
on the surface of the moon.

[Morgan] For the most part,
the structures are just

collapsed piles
of wooden boards.

[man] It was very difficult
to figure out what these
buildings were used for.

At first, I didn't know
anything about the people,

what they had to do
to build this and
how big it was.

[woman 2] It was just
part of a dream of theirs
to have their own lives

and control their own destiny.

[narrator] But a threat
to their very way of life
was looming.

[woman 1] Most people
will have heard of
homesteaders in the West.

But this side of the story
is far less often told.

[Morgan] These buildings
were a part of this ideal
community that existed,

although it was
under threat from
this sinister organization.

It's just horrific to see
some of the things that were
happening back then.

[narrator] Risking everything,
one man put his life
on the line

to protect his people.

[woman 1] He could
preempt any plots that
they were hatching,

and take the wind
out of their sails.

[narrator] George Junne
has made it
his life's ambition

to piece together the remnants
of this remote settlement.

[Dr Junne] I see some
of the buildings getting
in worse shape,

but at the same time,
there's a pride that I have.

These people came out here
with nothing

and built an outstanding
farming community.

They wanted to
own their own farms,

their own homes,
their own lands.

[woman 1] The idea
of moving out West,

getting some land
and providing for yourself
and your family

is central to the mythology
of America.

[narrator] The right
of independent farmers
to buy and farm land

was enshrined in law
in the 1860s.

But one side of
American homesteading
has almost been erased.

The story of homesteading
of the West after
the Civil War

is the story that's
generally caricatured

by white Americans.

What that leaves out is
the fact that the Homesteading
Act was color-blind.

There was no restriction
about race associated with it.

[narrator] Under
the homestead laws,

one man saw the potential
for a pioneering
Black community

on the Colorado Plains.

This house was lived in
by O.T. Jackson.

Oliver Toussaint Jackson.

[Alcock] Oliver T. Jackson
was a successful Black
entrepreneur from Ohio.

He owned restaurants
and a catering firm,

but he had a vision
of something far greater.

[narrator] Jackson identified
a plot of land outside Denver

that would be perfect.

As a businessman
with many irons in the fire,

he knew exactly
how to convince people
to join him.

[Dr Junne] Jackson worked
for one of his brothers'
newspapers.

So when it came time
for him to advertise,

he had all kinds of fliers,
he had newspaper articles
about it.

[narrator] In 1910,
the first settlers answering
Jackson's advertisements

arrived at a barren and
foreboding patch of land.

This is the town
of Dearfield, Colorado.

[Alcock] This was considered
marginal land, though.

It wasn't a prime destination
for farmers

like the Northwest
or California.

[Dr Junne] People did not
have their own cabins.

So they dug holes,
put blankets over the opening,

and that's where they lived
for the winter.

That's how badly
they wanted to own
their own farms and land.

[narrator] Against all odds,

the early settlers
marked their place
on the prairie

and the budding town
of Dearfield took root.

But to make ends meet
in this marginal land,

Jackson and the residents
of Dearfield had to resort
to illegal measures.

Jackson was known
for making some good beer.

[Morgan] Jackson had
to pay the bills

and that was one great way
to do it at the time.

[narrator] After nine years
of successfully living
on the homestead

and bringing in revenue,

the passage of
the 18th Amendment

and the arrival
of prohibition in 1919

threatened to cutoff
a vital source of income.

The anti-alcohol people
got together and
he had to stop making it,

at least openly.

[narrator] Hours away
from the nearest authorities,

Jackson stuck up
an illegal bootlegging
operation in Dearfield

to fund the growing town.

So the nickname
for Dearfield, to some,
was Beerfield.

[narrator] In the 1920s,
Dearfield was flourishing.

But the revival of
a dangerous supremacist group

nearly brought about
its destruction.

[fire crackling]

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Outside Denver,

an African-American
homestead community
thrived on the Plains.

But in the city,
a notorious group which had
lain dormant for 50 years

was rising once again.

The second iteration
of the KKK

began to spread across
the country in 1915,

largely inspired by the movie,
The Birth of a Nation.

That film reanimated
sympathies with a very
concocted notion

of what the old South
was supposed to be.

That film depicted, of course,
African-Americans as being the
primary enemy of whiteness.

[narrator] In 1921,
the Ku Klux Klan
reared its head in Denver

and publicly announced
its presence to the city.

[Alcock] We might
think of Denver as
a progressive city today,

but in the '20s, about a third
of the population of white,
American-born men

were members of the Klan.

It controlled the State House,
it controlled the Assembly,

it controlled the
Mayor's office in Denver.

[narrator] Just 60 miles
from Denver,

the residents of Dearfield
needed a way to keep tabs
on the growing threat.

And one man stepped up
to the task.

I haven't met Dr. Westbrook
in person

but I feel inexplicably linked
to Dr. Westbrook through
both sides of the family.

[narrator] Terri Gentry can
trace her own roots

back to the homesteaders
on the Colorado Plains.

Her ancestors
were close friends
of Dr. Joseph Westbrook.

[Morgan] Dr. Westbrook
was a physician
from Mississippi

who moved to Dearfield

and was an important
early member of
that community.

[Gentry] Dr. Westbrook
coined the term,
"The fields are dear to us."

And that's where the name
Dearfield came from.

[narrator] As a man
of African-American descent,

one characteristic
made Dr. Westbrook stand out.

Dr. Westbrook was born in
Hernando, Mississippi

and his mother
and grandmother were enslaved.

And as a result of that,
Dr. Westbrook was
very, very fair skinned.

[narrator] Westbrook's
appearance allowed him
to pass as a white man,

and get closer to the Klan
than anyone else in Dearfield.

A brave act that threatened
to get him killed if
his identity was discovered.

[man] He was able
to freely maneuver
through KKK activities.

He could infiltrate them,
keep tabs on their activities,

learn about the topics
of their meetings,

and relay this
to the Black community.

[narrator] Even as the Klan
marched openly down
the streets of Denver,

Westbrooks' reports
allowed the Black community

to preempt their plots.

With a spy of their own,
the people of Dearfield defied
the segregation of the era.

[Alcock] Even at the height
of the Klan's power in Denver,

the town of Dearfield thrived.

It was a true testament
to integration in the face
of overwhelming prejudice.

[Dr Junne] There's this
kind of a saying in farming

that you never wanna get
your neighbor mad

because you never know
when you have to
borrow something.

So out here, the Black people
here got together very well
with their neighbors.

[Morgan] They would pick up
work from white farmers
near them,

they were borrowing equipment
and renting equipment
from white farmers.

[narrator] One resident's home
was even a destination for
Black and white farmers alike.

[Dr Junne] On Saturday nights,
people from all over would
gather for their dances.

The time that the Ku Klux Klan
is going,

you have Black people
and white people on the same
dance floor having fun.

[narrator] The community
in Dearfield outlasted
the Klan in Denver.

[Morgan] The KKK
in Colorado ultimately dies
of self-inflicted wounds.

There's eventually
an investigation
for tax evasion.

And that will bring down
the KKK within the state.

[narrator] Dr. Westbrooks'
espionage had undermined
years of Klan activity.

But the intense stress
of the work eventually
took its toll on him.

[Gentry] It was
an incredible risk

and my grandmother thinks
that it impacted his health
considerably.

He was a member
of the Shorter AME Church.

And he stood up
to address the congregation
about something,

and sat down on the chair
and died of a heart attack.

That was in 1939.

[narrator] The same year
Dr. Westbrook died,

a growing crisis was ravaging
the farms of Dearfield.

Over farming and
natural factors had turned
the topsoil to dust.

[Morgan] They were depending
on seasonal rains

that kept this marginal area
capable of agricultural
production.

And with the onset
of the dust bowl,

that all comes
to a crashing halt.

[Alcock] The rains
stopped coming,

the creeks
and rivers dried up,

and the farming
that had sustained
these homesteaders

largely became untenable.

[narrator] After 30 good years
which saw many
homesteaders prosper,

Dearfield was largely
deserted by 1940.

Families moved away
in search of work.

But the town's founder,
Oliver T. Jackson,

stayed until his death
in 1948,

seeing his dream through
to the very end.

While only a few of
Dearfield's structures remain,

community and academic efforts
are underway to preserve
its legacy.

[Dr Junne] Even as
we're struggling to keep
the buildings going

and to repair them,

we should remember
that those people
overcame all odds to live here

and they make it work,
and they did it.

[voice shaking] Very humbling
that they did so much,

they worked so hard,

so that I could have
an amazing life.

[narrator] Off the shore
of South Carolina,

one structure has weathered
deadly conflicts

and seismic change.

[dramatic music playing]

[man 1] Where we are now
is the Atlantic Ocean.

But at one point,
this was a battleground.

[woman] Outside the port
of Charleston,

the coast is strewn
with many low-lying
barrier islands.

[man 2] The only thing
on the horizon for miles

is this stark tower,

seemingly jutting
straight up out of the water.

[narrator] Teetering
over the waves,

this forsaken
harbor lighthouse

has defied both
humans and nature.

The tower has this lean
like the Leaning Tower
of Pisa.

Just looks like it's gonna
tip over at any moment.

[man 2] But why build
so far offshore?

What happened
to everything else around it?

[woman] This place
was changing,

not just politically,

but also physically.

[narrator] Hundreds of men
would die here.

Every time the shore
eroded further,

more skeletons would emerge.

It became known as Coffinland.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Off Morris Island,

five miles from
Charleston harbor,

access to a remote lighthouse
requires a precarious journey.

Getting onto this thing
does not look easy.

There is no platform
to land on.

There's just this
tall rusting ladders.

[man 2] On a stormy day,

you get waves
crashing right up
the side of this thing.

[narrator] Denis Blyth
and Richard Beck

have dedicated their lives
to the preservation
of this historic tower.

[Blyth] My father and I
used to camp on
Morris Island,

and fish and such.

And I would come over here
on a smaller boat
in my early teen years,

and would traverse
the lighthouse myself.

[narrator] But reaching
the structure wasn't always
this treacherous.

[Beck] As you can tell,
it's now over a quarter
of mile out the sea.

When it first was built,
it was 2700 feet inland.

[narrator] This is
the Morris Island lighthouse,

part of a long history
of beacons that have
marked Charleston harbor.

There's been some form of
navigational aid
on Morris Island,

even going back to 1673.

The tower we see today

is actually the third formal
lighthouse on the island.

[Dr Szulgit] The lighthouse
seems to be in this
cursed position.

It's constantly being
accosted through history

by either nature or by humans.

[narrator] In the middle
of the 19th century,

the threat came
not from the sea

but from war.

[Bell] When news
reached Charleston

that Abraham Lincoln
had been elected
president in 1860,

it was almost certain
that the Southern states
were gonna secede.

And South Carolina
was the first to do so
in December that year.

[narrator] On
April 12th, 1861,

the Civil War broke out
when Confederate troops
fired on Fort Sumter.

Just three miles
down the coast,

Morris Island became
a strategic target
for Union Forces.

Morris Island was a island
they needed to take

in order to get
the canons within range
of Charleston.

[Bell] The weight
of the Federal Navy

was going to come
crashing down
on Morris Island.

And the lighthouse was caught
right in the middle.

[narrator] As the Civil War
broke out,

Union and Confederate forces
clashed outside
Charleston harbor.

Morris Island became
just this immense battleground

with some
really advanced tactics.

There were trenches dug,

there were mines,
both land and sea.

There were even
semi-submersible
vehicles being used.

[narrator] As the fighting
wore on, the dead
began to pile up

at the base of the lighthouse.

[Dr Szulgit] The only thing
they could really do is just

to bury them in shallow graves
in the sand.

[narrator] The harbor
lighthouse that stood
on the island

wouldn't survive the conflict.

[Beck] The first shots
of the Civil War were
fired on April 12th.

By the middle of September,
they had destroyed
that structure completely.

[narrator] For the remainder
of the war,

Charleston harbor
remained dark.

Finally, in 1873,

construction began
on the tower we see today.

[Beck] It took
three years to construct it,

made of over a million bricks.

Lighthouses were critical
to commerce at that
point in time.

So the Federal government
spent a lot of money
on lighthouses.

It was equipped
with a keeper's cottage,

barns, chicken coops,

and even a schoolhouse
for the keeper's children.

[Bell] So the question
remains,

"Where is all of this now?"

The lighthouse was built
on Morris Island.

So what's it doing now
out at sea?

[narrator] The nation's
greatest internal conflict
had passed.

But the new lighthouse
would now have to contend
with an ill-conceived attempt

to control nature.

[dramatic music playing]

[Dr Szulgit] Throughout
the 19th century,

the harbor traffic
was increasing.

Charleston harbor was
becoming ever more important.

Two rock jetties were built
to deepen the shipping lane
into the harbor.

But this would have
dire consequences
for the rest of the coastline.

[Blyth] The jetties extend
two and a half miles
out from the shore

of Sullivan's Island
on the north side

and Morris Island
on the south side.

[Bell] The jetties
altered the ocean currants
enough in the bay

that Morris Island
began to erode,
and rapidly.

[narrator] As storms
battered the island
and the coastline shifted,

the horrors of a decades
old war began to reemerge.

[Dr Szulgit] There is
an account from
a lighthouse keeper that says

that with every storm,
so many bodies would
appear out of the sand

as the sand was taken away
that he would have
a wagon load

that he had to dispose of.

[narrator] Despite surviving
everything the Atlantic Ocean
could throw at it,

nature had one more
cruel trick to play
on Morris Island lighthouse,

one that would leave it
bent and broken.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] On Morris Island,
this lighthouse
has stood proud

for a century-and-a-half.

Yet, one event
would scar it forever.

1986, there was
the Charleston earthquake,

which was felt
all the way
into the Northeast.

[Dr Kwami] The earthquake
that struck Charleston
destroyed two churches

and killed about
a hundred people.

Out of Morris Island,
the lighthouse was cracked
in two places

and the building was
hanging on by a thread.

The crack on the wall
actually starts
from the exterior,

comes through these archways,

up through this archway
and continues up the tower.

[narrator] Decades later,

the battered lighthouse
finally found itself

at the edge
of an approaching shoreline.

[Dr Szulgit] So by 1938,
the outbuildings
had to be removed

but the ocean was
also importantly,

striking right up
against the lighthouse.

[Bell] They needed to act fast

or this thing was
gonna be swept away.

[narrator] Still vital
to the survival of the ships
in Charleston harbor,

the lighthouse
had to be saved.

In 1939, a drastic solution
was devised,

one which requires
constant maintenance
to this day.

The Army Corps of engineers
built a giant bulkhead around
the base of the lighthouse,

that you can see today.

They took a giant steel sheath
and pounded it down
into the sand

around the lighthouse.

They could then fill that
with concrete,

so that you have this large
concrete pile on that was
nice and stable

with the lighthouse
sitting on top.

[narrator] Cut off
by the waves,

the lighthouse keeper's job
was made impossible.

The Morris Island lighthouse
was automated

and finally, in 1962,
it was decommissioned.

[Bell] Throughout all
its iterations it had seen
the most defining conflicts

in American history.

And each time,
it was rebuilt again.

But this would be
its last life.

[narrator] Today,
the Morris Island lighthouse

has become an iconic symbol
for the port of Charleston,

and a reminder
of its tumultuous history,

one preserved by
the Save the Light group.

[Beck] This lighthouse
is part of the fabric
of this community.

If you lose it,
then the community
is diminished by it.

So we think it's important
to do everything we can.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In Downtown
Jacksonville,

a forgotten city block
was the site of
both destruction

and international stardom.

We are standing
on what I would consider
to be holy ground.

[Meigs] We're in the
neighborhood of LaVilla

on the west side
of Jacksonville.

This is an area that
has seen better days.

[Bell] Most of the lots
are vacant and overgrown.

Many of them are just
being used for parking.

The buildings are old.
They are, in some cases,
falling apart.

[Bell] There's
three little shacks straight
out of a horror movie.

And then, just on
the other side of the fence,
this big brick building

props up on a few columns.

[narrator] The interior
of this structure
lends few clues

to the array of celebrities
that walked its halls.

[man] This brick building
is totally gutted inside.

Why was this
one building saved?

[Meigs] You wouldn't know it
by looking at this
hulk of a building,

but this was once
an important cultural center

for a thriving community.

[man 1] America would not
be what it is today

if not for the contributions
of people from this
particular neighborhood.

Stepping into these buildings
is a bit emotional.

The blood and sweat and tears
of my ancestors that

built communities like this
all across the South.

[narrator] For his whole life,
community activist Ennis Davis

has been reviving
this neighborhood's place
in history.

[Davis] A lot of my history
has been passed on
generationally.

I'm a sixth generation
Black Floridian.

My family, they would share
stories with me as a kid.

It all started
to come together

in terms of understanding
the significance
of LaVilla itself.

[narrator] Even before
their time in the spotlight,

these buildings were home
to a burgeoning
Black middle class.

Jacksonville has long been
a crossroads,

situated on
the narrowest point
of the Saint John's river.

And it soon became
a railroad hub for the state.

On thing that was
distinctive about
rail in America

is that it was a big employer
of Black Americans.

[narrator] Known as
shotgun houses,

these buildings became
a symbol of the workforce

employed by the railroads.

[Davis] These shotgun houses
are very interesting to me

because my dad
grew up and was raised
in a shotgun house.

[man] The shotgun house
was a popular
architectural style

from Reconstruction
all the way up in
to the 20th century.

And because they were
easy to build,

you could put 'em up
by the dozen.

[Davis] Many say
it's called the shotgun house

because you can
take a shotgun,

shoot it through
the front door

and it could pass
through the entire house

and out the back door
without hitting anything.

[narrator] But a disaster
would soon strike the city.

And one building
would emerge like
a phoenix from the flames.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] In the LaVilla
neighborhood of Jacksonville,

Black railroad workers
had carved out a thriving
middleclass life.

But all that was about
to go up in flames.

On May 3rd, 1901,

a fire started,
just a few blocks
away from here,

in a pile of Spanish moss
at a mattress factory.

[narrator] In a race
against time,

the fire department struggled
to contain the blaze.

Fire got out of hand,
wind changed directions,

and it literally burned down
the majority of what was then
downtown area of Jacksonville.

[Meigs] In just eight hours,
this fire would destroy
2000 homes.

It wiped out 146 city blocks.

It left about
10,000 people homeless.

[narrator] But in
the wake of the fire,

this neighborhood
would undergo
a musical renaissance.

One building that survived
the flames found itself
at the heart of it.

This is Genovar's Hall.

[Meigs] This building
was built by a guy
named Samuel Genovar

in 1895,

primarily for use
as a grocery store.

This building had
a bar upstairs called
the Lenape Bar,

and it was this bar,
not the grocery store

that made this building
an iconic location
in the neighborhood.

[Dr Kwami] There were so many
Black-owned businesses here,

it became known as
Harlem of the South.

[narrator] The LaVilla
neighborhood and
the Lenape Bar

became a crossroads
for musical legends

travelling through
the Southeast.

So some of those people
who would have
come through here

would be, Louis Armstrong,

Fletcher Henderson,
Billie Holiday,

Duke Ellington.

Louis Armstrong actually
stayed upstairs in the hotel
when he was in town

because he said
this was one of the most
happening spots

in Jacksonville.

[narrator] One young boy
who moved to the neighborhood

found himself at the heart
of musical history
in the making,

and wanted to carve out
his own shot at stardom.

[Meigs] One musician
who used to hang out here

was a blind piano player

named Ray Robinson.

And he was a real prodigy.

He'd moved to the area
as a teenager.

He made $4 a night

playing the clubs
up and down the street,

including this place.

He actually memorized
how to walk from
his family's house

to the Lenape.

[narrator] But if Ray
was going to catch
his big break,

he needed an opportunity,

and this street presented one.

[Davis] Along Ashley Street,
there is a post

where you would
actually hitch your horse to.

And it became known as
the rail of hope.

So you had a lot of
aspiring musicians
waiting to be discovered,

who would hang out
on the front of this building.

[narrator] In the right place
at the right time,

Ray Robinson got
some of the first gigs
of his career

that set him on the path
to super stardom.

[Bell] He developed
his talents playing as
a sideman for other performers

before becoming a star himself

under the name we know today,

Ray Charles.

[Davis] Just hanging out
on this street,

playing his sound,
showing his talent,

that gave him an opportunity
to be discovered.

[Dr Kwami] Ray Charles said
he never wanted to be famous,

but he wanted to great.

He surely accomplished
both of those goals.

And this building
was a huge part
of that journey.

[narrator] But unlike
Ray Charles,

this neighborhood would not
prosper in the latter half
of the 20th century.

By the 1960s,
everything was changing

in the LaVilla neighborhood.

The railroads
have gone into decline.

So this great source
of pride and steady income

for this majority
Black neighborhood,

that started to go away.

[narrator] As railroad
traffic shrank,

the car became
king of Jacksonville,

and LaVilla took another hit.

I-95 was built right through
the heart of this community.

[Meigs] When you divide up
a neighborhood with
a super highway,

often the neighborhood
that's on the wrong side
of that highway

goes into a rapid decline.

[Bell] The final
nail in the coffin for LaVilla
came in the 1990s.

In a failed effort
to redevelop the neighborhood,

most of the buildings
were demolished

and Genovar's Hall
was one of very few
to be left standing.

[narrator] Today,
Genovar's Hall
and these shotgun houses

stand as mementos
of this neighborhood's heyday.

Activists like Ennis

hope that this community
will be strengthened

by their restoration.

[Davis] Today, we look at it
as it's time to reclaim

LaVilla's rightful place
and tell LaVilla's story,

not only for
future generations,

but also for our ancestors
and their sacrifices,

and blood, sweat, and tears

that they made to build
communities like this.