Today in Jacksonville History: April 6, 1917

Jacksonville went to war, along with the rest of the country.

Hardly was Woodrow Wilson's ink dry than the locals girded their loins.

Within the hour, customs officials seized the German freighter Frieda Leonhardt and removed its crew.

National Guard Maj. H.L. Covington urged young men of the city to enlist post haste, promising a quick call to action.

Mayor J.E.T. Bowden ordered Jacksonville police to protect all German and Austrian nationals, and other aliens resembling them, from "undue excitement" of the citizenry.

The board of directors of the Germania Club immediately tendered use of its handsome Riverside Avenue clubhouse to the local chapter of the American Red Cross.

Lt. Cmdr. Louie Strum said Second Battalion, Florida Naval Militia, would mobilize immediately at the Duval County Armory. Strum said orders to ship out would follow in 24 hours.

President Wilson signed the congressional war resolution at 1:18 p.m. in Washington, only in the presence of his family.

Word flashed immediately to all Army and Navy stations and vessels at sea. Within minutes, customs inspector Kimball Bobbitt boarded the Frieda Leonhardt in Jacksonville harbor.

"Thus the first official act of the war in Jacksonville was performed under orders of the Washington authorities," the Florida Metropolis said.

Recruits flocked to the National Guard station on West Forsyth Street. The local Girls National Guard of Honor assembled there to greet, welcome and cheer on the prospective soldiers.

The door was opened to at least 250 of Jacksonville's finest young men, pending news of the second 24 hours of World War I.  

Also on April 6, 1917  

- Employees of the Seaboard Air Line Railay shops purchased the largest American flag in the city -- 18-by-22-foot -- which they planned to hoist with appropriate ceremonies at the Lackawanna yard to the top of the largest flagpole -- 120 feet -- in Jacksonville.

- Josie Harmon, "America's foremost cabaret entertainer" direct from New York City, opened an engagement at the Brubridge Cafe. Also featured: Babe Hardy, "everbody's favorite in clever songs and dancing," and Mrs. Babe Hardy, "with her enlarged ragtime 6-piece orchestra with saxophone and banjo."

- A Jacksonville delegation went to a conference in Atlanta to consider ways to make the Southland self-sufficient in food during time of war. Goal of the conference was to have every acre of idle and vacant land in the South planted in some kind of food crop.