RIVERSIDE HISTORY The first clubhouse for The Florida Yacht Club, whose early beginnings were at what is now Yacht Basin Park along St. Johns Avenue.
in the area, with McGirtt simultaneously managing a successful farm operation. Ortega’s 90-acre McGirts Creek Park and McGirts Creek, along with McGirts Boulevard, provide no clues to their namesake’s notorious life. Fast forward to 1902, when financing from J. Pierpont Morgan – and a new wooden bridge in 1908 connecting with the former Edgewood development – finally made Ortega ripe for development. Elegant neighborhoods abound with varied architecture, designed by Henry Klutho as part of the area’s housing boom in the 1920s. A certain Grand Avenue home of this era allegedly housed Gangster George “Machine Gun” Kelly and his wife Kathryn, before
they fled in 1933, narrowly missing a midnight police raid. Today, Ortega is home to the Florida Yacht Club, Timuquana Country Club, and one of the nation’s oldest functioning drawbridges, the Ortega River Bridge, in operation since its completion in 1927. Visitors will also notice that the street system is a grid pattern with themed street names. One end of the historic district has street names of Native American tribes. One section has the names of Ivy League schools. Another section has the names of all the styles of architectural columns (e.g., Doric, Ionic, Corinthian). Separated by U.S. 17 or Roosevelt Blvd. the other half of the island, today referred to as Ortega Forest, borders the interior reaches of the Ortega River and is known for its river frontage and canals that run throughout the neighborhood.
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