An era ends, future awaits Knights of Columbus Hall
With the purchase of the Knights of Columbus Hall in San Marco by Worth Turner, the Knights of Columbus-Bishop Kenny Council 1951 moves into new quarters at Assumption Catholic Church on Atlantic Boulevard. It’s a bittersweet moment full of warm memories and hopeful plans.
The pandemic has prevented the council from renting out the hall for community events, which reduced rental income.
“Trying to keep the building going was very hard,” said Dick Collins, Past Grand Knight for the Bishop Kenny Council 1951. “We regretted having to sell the building, but time changes things. This is a new chapter, and we’re looking forward to the future.” Collins still works at council events, helps out wherever he can and is a trustee of the council.
The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization with nearly 1.9 million members worldwide, is focused on its founding principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. Its Bishop Kenny Council 1951 was chartered in 1919. The group has done many community service projects over the years, such as sponsoring Little League and basketball teams; raising funds and helping with spelling bees; coaching youth leagues; holding fundraising events to benefit local nonprofits; conducting blood drives; unloading, sorting and distributing Easter baskets and hosting a Christmas party for foster children with Family Support Services in San Marco; and cooking for more than 3,000 special needs children and their families at Jacksonville Zoo’s Trout River Grille. The council also cooks a hamburger lunch annually for Bishop Kenny students and faculty.
“I happened to show a fellow coworker, Dennis Alston, an old photo that I had of one of the council’s Little League teams,” Collins said. The guy recognized his brother, Ben Alston, in the photo. He told his brother that Collins had a photo of him, and the brother came to Collins’ office at Coastal Industries Inc., off St. Johns Bluff Road.
Alston asked for the photo because he recognized so many of the boys in it, saying, “The Knights of Columbus kept me out of trouble. They were good role models for me.”
Collins remembers many neighborhood kids making good use of the elevated swimming pool, playground and softball field where tennis courts now sit next to the Bishop Kenny Council building.
In 2017, while Collins was Grand Knight, Bishop Kenny Council 1951 won the top Community Service Award from the Florida State Council of the Knights of Columbus.
“We’ll still be able to do charitable work for the community without our building,” Collins said. “The pastor of Assumption Catholic Church is a member of our council and very supportive.”
“We anticipate that our move to the church will make us more visible to its members, especially the youth, which will encourage more to become council members,” said Collins.
Membership is open to males 18 years of age or older who are practicing Catholics.
The building at 1509 Hendricks Avenue was a two-story auto/mechanic shop when the Bishop Kenny Council acquired it in the early 60s. The group met in the upstairs above the auto shop. The terrazzo floor in the building’s entrance sports the organization’s initials – KFC.
“Worth Turner has said it will keep the initials there when they renovate the building to commemorate our history in the building and the community,” Collins said.
Prior to its life as a shop, Collins believes that the building was a fire station for the City of South Jacksonville. Next door where Aardwolf Brewing Company now makes beer was the utilities building for South Jacksonville. Across the street where the San Marco Preservation Society is housed today was South Jacksonville’s city hall.
The 1996 revised edition of Wayne Wood’s book, Jacksonville’s Architectural Heritage, notes that South Jacksonville was incorporated into a town in 1907, with a population of about 600. Nearly 25 years later, on Jan. 1, 1932, South Jacksonville was absorbed into the City of Jacksonville.
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