St. John's Cathedral, the Episcopal cathedral in front of you, has roots deep in Jacksonville's history. One of the city's oldest congregations, it began as St. John's Parish in 1834 and became one of the seven original parishes when the Diocese of Florida was received into the Episcopal General Convention in 1838. The cornerstone of the present cathedral remembers a first church built in 1842 that burned in 1862 during the American Civil War.
In the early 1870s Edward Tuckerman Potter designed a new St. Johns; construction began in 1873 and that church was completed and dedicated in 1877, only to be lost in the Great Fire of 1901 that destroyed most of Downtown Jacksonville. The next year Howard Nott Potter of the firm Snelling and Potter designed the replacement, and this building was completed and consecrated in 1906. St. John's remains the only cathedral in Jacksonville.
Step inside and you will feel the cavernous interior: the church is built in the Gothic Revival style and stained-glass windows line the walls. The sweep of vaults rises above you, and the glowing stained-glass windows trace the room and reach out into the city beyond.