Working on hay wagons in the 1950s, we used similar hooks to lift the bales onto the wagon. We called 'em "hay hooks."

Not a smile in sight.

I don't see anyone drinking. Nowadays so many of us are never without a bottle of water in hand, yet these guys are doing heavy labor.

The Seminole Hotel was brand new when this photo was taken, having opened on New Year's Day 1910. It closed in 1967 and was spectacularly imploded in 1974.

Those women dishing out the chow most likely were not from the Y, as someone wondered, but just enterprising ladies who showed up at meal time with their food-for-sale in wagons like the one in the foreground.

There seems to be at least four food serving tables, judging by the women's hats I see, but with all of those chowhounds there had to be more, off camera.

I wonder what app the mustachioed gent to the right of the first table is checking on his iPad?

It's a longshoreman's hook, and in days past was often carried this way.

I assume you are addressing the man at far right, who appears to be using his cargo hook as a stool. Living dangerously!

Those hooks (more than one in the picture) are used by stevedores. The hook goes under the crate or whatever and the man has his grip on the handle, which is more secure and comfortable a purchase than he could get on the various sharp, rough, irregular things he has to lift. The hook probably has a proper nomenclature. Can't remember.

This must have been before her conversion.

That cargo hook doesn't know it's break time.

One of my favoritest places on earth. In 1901, Jacksonville was poised to become the Hollywood of the East Coast when a great fire destroyed downtown. I'm sure they were still struggling to recover from it here in 1910.

Even the dog.

Wonder if the ladies are from the YMCA (sign on the left).

Interesting the almost identical work clothes of the laboring men -- suspenders or overalls, vests, caps and dusty hats, plain boots -- all clothing wiry men, in contrast to the banker gents in the back, with their fancy stripes and rounded bellies.

Wondering what the hook is in the belt of the guy sitting with his back to us on the bale of wire. I expect it's some kind of gaff?

Judging by the location of the Hotel Seminole, this is the foot of Hogan Street. This location is now flanked by the Jacksonville Landing to the east (right) and the Times-Union Performing Arts Center to the west (left).

Anybody else spot the one-legged man?

The Times-Union is, in my long-standing personal opinion, the best newspaper in Florida. Even today you will find its news-racks in west, north, and northeast Florida, and as the Georgia Times-Union all over south and central Georgia.