William Haydon Burns (March 17, 1912 – November 22, 1987) was the thirty-fifth governor of
FloridaFlorida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States...
from 1965 to 1967. He was also
mayor of the city of
JacksonvilleJacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida, and is the county seat of Duval County. Since 1968, as a result of the consolidation of the city and county government, and a corresponding expansion of the city limits to include almost the entire county, Jacksonville became the...
from 1949 to 1965.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Haydon Burns' family moved to Jacksonville in 1922, where he attended
Andrew Jackson High SchoolAndrew Jackson High School is the oldest fully accredited high school in Duval County, Florida. It is located just north of downtown Jacksonville on Main Street . It opened in 1927, followed by Robert E. Lee High School, which opened in 1928. It was originally an all-white school, but the school...
before going on to attend
Babson CollegeBabson College is a private business school located in Wellesley, Massachusetts.- History :Babson College was founded by Roger Babson on September 3, 1919, as the Babson Institute. It was renamed "Babson College" in 1969...
in
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
.
William Haydon Burns (March 17, 1912 – November 22, 1987) was the thirty-fifth governor of
FloridaFlorida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States...
from 1965 to 1967. He was also
mayor of the city of
JacksonvilleJacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida, and is the county seat of Duval County. Since 1968, as a result of the consolidation of the city and county government, and a corresponding expansion of the city limits to include almost the entire county, Jacksonville became the...
from 1949 to 1965.
Early life
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Haydon Burns' family moved to Jacksonville in 1922, where he attended
Andrew Jackson High SchoolAndrew Jackson High School is the oldest fully accredited high school in Duval County, Florida. It is located just north of downtown Jacksonville on Main Street . It opened in 1927, followed by Robert E. Lee High School, which opened in 1928. It was originally an all-white school, but the school...
before going on to attend
Babson CollegeBabson College is a private business school located in Wellesley, Massachusetts.- History :Babson College was founded by Roger Babson on September 3, 1919, as the Babson Institute. It was renamed "Babson College" in 1969...
in
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
. Before the outbreak of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he was an appliance salesman and a flight school operator. During the war, he joined the U.S. Navy and was posted as a technical officer in the office of the Secretary of the Navy. Following the war, he returned to Jacksonville and began a public relations and business consulting firm.
Mayor of Jacksonville
In 1949, he was elected to his first term as mayor of Jacksonville. He was elected to four more terms as mayor, longer than any other mayor of Jacksonville to date.
During his time in the mayor's office, he oversaw massive growth in Jacksonville. He promoted the city around the world in an attempt to lure international investments and to get corporations to relocate offices to the city. He commissioned the production of a slide show called "The Jacksonville Story", hundreds of audiences saw it around the world. The American National Exhibit showed a film version in the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. Burns personally made presentations at
The HagueThe Hague is the third largest city in the Netherlands after Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with a population of 485,818 and an area of approximately 100 km²...
and in
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
. He made "The Jacksonville Story" known from coast to coast, and so was Jacksonville's mayor.
He was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, president of the Florida League of Municipalities, and delegate to the International Congress of Municipalities. While mayor, he won tax breaks for insurance companies and Prudential Insurance relocated from
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
to a
skyscraperA skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building. There is no official definition or height above which a building may clearly be classified as a skyscraper...
in Jacksonville. Other insurance companies followed, and Jacksonville became known as the insurance capital of the South.
A new courthouse and City Hall were built on the site of rotten wharves, and a long-promised Civic Auditorium was built on the river.
Jacksonville Memorial ColiseumJacksonville Veterans Memorial Coliseum was an 11,000-seat multi-purpose arena in Jacksonville, Florida. Built in 1960, it was home to most of the city's indoor professional sports teams, including the Jacksonville Lizard Kings ice hockey team, and the American Basketball Association franchise...
and
Sam W. Wolfson Baseball ParkSam W. Wolfson Baseball Park was a stadium in Jacksonville, Florida with a seating capacity of 8,200. Although used primarily for baseball, the facility hosted other events until the Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum was built in 1961...
made the city thoroughly modern. The
Atlantic Coast Line RailroadThe Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was an American railroad that existed between 1898 and July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, its long-time rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. The company was headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida...
, today CSX, moved from
Wilmington, North CarolinaWilmington is a city in and the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 75,838 at the 2000 Census. A July 1, 2008 United States Census Bureau estimate places the population at 100,192...
to the Jacksonville riverfront. The world's largest Sears Roebuck store opened on what once was skid row. A modern expressway system took shape and the city got the
Jacksonville SunsThe Jacksonville Suns are a minor league baseball team that plays in Jacksonville, Florida. The team is a member of the Southern League and is the is the Double-A affiliate of the Florida Marlins. The Suns won the International League title in 1968 and the Southern League championship in 1996,...
baseball franchise and a hockey team.
The city faced many problems during Burns' term. Racial violence ignited on August 27, 1960 during a protest to integrate downtown lunch counters in the
Hemming ParkHemming Plaza is a public park, located in the heart of the government center in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. It originally served as a village green, was the first and is the oldest park in the city.-Beginnings:...
shopping area. Segregationists responded by attacking the protesters with baseball bats and ax handles; the day is remembered as Ax Handle Saturday. Burns tried to blame the shameful incident on visitors but the police chief attributed the attacks to locals. The city's police department was ridden with scandal and multiple grand jury indictments were handed down on public officials all around him.
One of his final acts as mayor was his handling of the
Hotel Roosevelt fireThe Hotel Roosevelt fire, on December 29 1963, was the worst fire Jacksonville, Florida had seen since the Great Fire of 1901, and it contributed to the worst one-day death toll in the city's history...
in downtown. With his quick action, he saved most of the hotel visitors from possible death from smoke inhalation. He left the mayor's office in 1965 to become governor of Florida.
Governorship
Burns was sworn in as governor on January 5, 1965, to serve an abbreviated two year term. This short term came about because the cycle of gubernatorial elections was changed so as not to coincide with presidential election years. While in office, he oversaw progress in the development of a new state constitution, as well as new areas of outdoor recreation and industry. Also, Governor Burns opposed the
death penaltyCapital punishment is legal in U.S. state of Florida. Florida was the first state to reintroduce the death penalty after the Supreme Court of the United States struck down all statutes in the country in the 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision, and the first to perform a post-Furman involuntary...
and allowed no executions (the last
pre-FurmanFurman v. Georgia, was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. The Court consolidated Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas with the Furman decision, and thus also invalidated the death penalty for...
execution in Florida took place in 1964).
The 1966 gubernatorial elections pitted the sitting governor against
Robert King HighRobert King High was a reform Mayor of Miami, Florida from 1957 until his death, and the Democratic Party nominee for governor of Florida in 1966.-Early years:...
, a popular Miami politician. This primary was significant because Burns represented the conservative wing of the Democratic Party and King was the choice of the liberals from South Florida. Governor Burns lost the 1966 Democratic primary; he avoided supporting King in the general election. Political observers in Florida point to King's supposed failure to seek such endorsement from Burns. This left the party divided in the face of united Republican support for Claude Kirk. He left office on January 3, 1967 as the first Democratic Governor of Florida in history to be succeeded by a Republican.
Post-governorship
After his term ended, the governor returned to private business consulting in Jacksonville. In 1971, he made an unsuccessful attempt to be reelected mayor. As time went by, many of Burns' accomplishments for the city of Jacksonville were forgotten. Many of the projects that he help to create, such as the city's civic auditorium, rebuilt in 1996 and renamed,
Times-Union Center for the Performing ArtsThe Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts in Jacksonville, Florida opened in 1997, and was built on the former location of the Civic Auditorium. The Jim and Jan Moran Theater opened on February 8, 1997, and the The Robert E. Jacoby Symphony Hall opened with an inaugural concert by the...
, Wolfson Baseball Park, City Hall and Coliseum have all been replaced with newer structures. However, his work for the city's growth remains evident today. Haydon Burns remained in Jacksonville until his death in 1987.
Jacksonville's main public library, built in 1965, was named the
Haydon Burns LibraryThe Haydon Burns Library in Jacksonville, Florida was named in honor of W. Haydon Burns, who served as Mayor of Jacksonville for 15 years, longest of any person. Burns also served an abbreviated 2-year term as Governor of Florida. The Burns Library replaced the Carnegie library, built in 1905 and...
in honor of the former mayor. It was designed by Taylor Hardwick, a local architect who designed many local structures built in Jacksonville. However, it too was replaced in 2005 by a new Main Library.
In 1966, the building located at 605 Suwannee Street in Tallahassee, Florida opened and was named the W. Haydon Burns Building. It became home to the State Road Department, now the
Florida Department of TransportationThe Florida Department of Transportation is a decentralized agency charged with the establishment, maintenance, and regulation of public transportation in the state of Florida. The department was formed in 1969. It absorbed the powers of the State Road Department and the Florida State Turnpike...
.
In 2004, the city of Jacksonville renamed the old City Hall, built by Burns, the Haydon Burns City Hall Annexe.
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