Shipbuilding History

Jacksonville FL

Most recent update: January 6, 2021.

This shipyard was established as a blacksmith shop by Jacob Brock in the 1850s: after Brock's death in 1877, it was sold to Arthur Stevens, who teamed up with James Merrill, a blacksmith in South Jacksonville, and formed Merrill-Stevens Engineering Co., which was incorporated in 1887. Shipbuilding began in earnest in 1890. The company was reorganized as Merrill-Stevens Co. In 1904, as part of a recapitalization to raise the funds needed to build the floating dock "Roosevelt". During WWI, they built small freighters, first of composite materials and later of steel, for the Emergency Fleet Corporation, (EFC), using a separate facility, which was closed after the war. The company then reorganized as Merrill-Stevens Dry Dock & Repair Co., in their original yard and started a second operation in Miami in 1933, both yards operating as repair yards through WWII. During WWII, Merrill-Stevens also participated in the management of St Johns River Shipbuilding Company, one of the emergency yards, that built 82 Liberty ships and 12 T-1 tankers for MARCOM. Then, in about 1953, Merrill-Stevens leased the Jacksonville shipyard to Rawls Brothers Contractors and relocated to Miami, where it is still in business, as Merrill-Stevens Dry Dock, Inc., describing itself as "Florida's oldest continuously operating company". Rawls Brothers renamed the company Rawls Brothers Shipyard, but sold it again in 1963 to Bill Lovett, who simultaneously bought Gibbs Gas Engine Company, the shipyard immediately across the river, and Bellinger Shipyards, in Jacksonville Beach, renaming them all Jacksonville Shipyards. In this new organization, Rawls Brothers was engaged solely in repair. The new company was sold again in 1969, this time to Fruehauf Corporation. Finally, in 1989, it was sold to Terex Corp., which closed all three shipyards for good in 1992, selling the two large floating dry-docks to the Arab Ship Repair Yard, (ASRY), in Bahrain. The Merrill-Stevens/Rawls Brothers yard was located at 750 E. Bay Street, in downtown Jacksonville: after closure, it was to have been developed for residential and commercial use but almost 30 years later it still lies deserted. See the site from the air on Google here. This yard's record is a mixed bag of sizes and types of vessel, of hull types and materials, and of customers.

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