The first plane landed at the newly constructed Jacksonville Air Station at Black Point on the St. Johns River. Mayport Naval Station opened in 1942 at the mouth of the river adjacent to the village of Mayport. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings book, Cross Creek, was published in 1942 and devoted most of one chapter about the St. Johns River, including: “If I could have, to hold forever, one brief place of time and beauty, I think I might choose the night on the high lonely bank above the St. Johns River.”