258. Pensacola's Red Bluff Community School 1909

Red Bluff was located in Escambia County, Florida overlooking Escambia Bay off Scenic Highway and today's Labelle Terre Blvd. The community was named after the red color of the clay on the bluffs that was used in the making of bricks that was so predominant in this area of Pensacola. Bricks of the time were made of any clay-bearing soil, sand, and lime. But, the clay along Scenic Highway was of a fine quality and highly desired. In the 1980's, there were still the remnants of the brick kilns along the bay front where Creighton meets Scenic Highway. And naturally, communities would spring up in and around these types of mills where employment was offered and needed. But, due to lack of adequate transportation, many of these small, spread out communities were forced to maintain their own schools for their children. The location of the Red Bluff School was very likely in or around the Gull Point area.

The teacher in the photo is identified as Lonnie John Clark, who most likely was from Gadsden County, Florida. Strangely, this young farmer does not seem to have ever left the town of Greensboro where he was born on September 5, 1878 to Edward Clark and Elizabeth Saphrona Green. But, he is the only man that fits this odd combination of names, the right age, the right general geographical location, and who possessed an 8th grade education that was adequate for a 1909 school teacher. His father was a farmer and naturally Lonnie took up the same profession. Three years prior to this photo, the young man married Eva Wells on April 4, 1906 in Colquitt County, Georgia just northeast of his home in Greensboro. After a lifetime of farming, Lonnie passed away in 1947 and was buried in the Flat Creek Cemetery in Greensboro where Eva would join him in 1955. Perhaps information will come our way explaining why Lonnie John, a Gadsden County farmer, was in Pensacola teaching school in 1909.