Arthur G. Penman

Arthur Penman (1885-1966) was a Canadian who moved to the Beaches in the 1920s during the Florida land boom when land was cheap. He purchased a Spanish land grant comprising nearly all the property between 10^th Street North and 6^th Street Avenue South in Jacksonville Beach, including railroad right-of-way now known as Beach Boulevard. The Ottawa native developed some of the first subdivisions in Neptune and Jacksonville Beach. A street named in his honor (Penman Road) runs through both communities. He was also a noted local fisherman who once caught a 172-pound tarpon in the St. Johns River on 39-pound test line. The catch was considered a world record at the time. He died June 9, 1966, at his Neptune Beach home on Florida Boulevard at the age of 83.

Arthur G. Penman was a transplanted Canadian and a pioneer Beaches real estate developer best known for developing the Pine Grove and Neptune Grove subdivisions in Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach, respectively.

He was born in 1883 in a suburb of Ottawa, the son of a Presbyterian minister. He was educated at staunchly Presbyterian Pictou Academy in Nova Scotia.

In 1907, two years after he graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Penman married 18-year-old Rive Regis Tefft of Toronto. The couple had three daughters, Margery, Rive Marguerite and Elizabeth (nicknamed Betty).

Before he moved to Florida, Penman dabbled in silver mines and investment securities in Canada and oil in Oklahoma. 

In 1924, while operating as a broker for a Miami businessman, Penman made a successful bid on more than 120,000 acres of property west of Green Cove Springs, which later became Penney Farms. This in all likelihood is how he got his first glimpse of the Jacksonville area.

His headstone says he came to the Beaches in the 1920s, but according to the late Beaches historian Don Mabry, Penman wrote on his sworn naturalization application that he permanently moved to the U.S. on Nov. 7, 1931, crossing the border at Buffalo with his wife and their three girls.

There were only 1,500 or so people living at the Beaches when Penman arrived here. Penman wasted no time getting his real estate business up and running, establishing the Beaches Sales Corp. on Dec. 9, 1931.

Much of the land he would develop was essentially part of a Spanish land grant. In 1936, he built a 3-bedroom, 2200-square-foot house at 1001 Florida Blvd. for about $3,000. The house is situated about a block east of Penman Road and today is worth an estimated $450,000.

In 1939, Penman created another corporation called the Jacksonville Beaches Co. with his youngest daughter Betty serving as the president.

In 1942, Betty fell in a love with a young British airman who was training at NAS Jacksonville. When “Tony” Casey returned to England in 1943, he told his brother he almost got hitched in the states.

On Dec. 17, 1943, Tony wrote to Betty, asking her to say a prayer for him and to sing their song “Silver Wings in the Moonlight” as he was heading off on a bombing mission over Germany. A week later, on Dec. 24, 1943, Tony’s parents received a telegram informing them that their 23-year-old son was reported missing in action and presumed dead, along with six other members of his air crew. A total of 75,000 British airmen were killed, wounded or taken prisoner in WWII.

Pine Grove in Jacksonville Beach was Penman’s largest real estate development with more than 75 homes stretching from 2^nd Avenue North to 7^th Avenue North.

Penman advertised that he owned more land than anyone else at the beach. But he was not the first Canadian to become a major Beaches land baron. Harcourt Bull came to Jacksonville in 1913 and developed much of what is now Atlantic Beach.

Penman became a U.S. citizen on Dec. 17, 1943, and was a member of the Rotary Club, the Ponte Vedra Club and the Jacksonville Beach Chamber of Commerce. He also served as vice commodore of the Jacksonville Beaches Yacht and Fishing Club.

In Canada, Penman was active in motorboat races, but fishing was his favorite pastime. It was said that Penman knew every fishing hole worth knowing in the state, from Mayport to the Florida Keys. In 1943, he reeled in a 123-pound tarpon from the St. Johns River. At the time, it was the largest tarpon ever caught on a 15-pound line, according to Field & Stream magazine. He surpassed that feat in 1949 when he landed a 172-pound tarpon from the St. Johns.

Penman died at his Neptune Beach home on June 9, 1966. He was 83. Sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s, B.B. McCormick cut a road between Neptune Beach and Jacksonville Beach, naming it in Penman’s honor.