Biography of Tracy L. Acosta, Jacksonville, Duval County, FL

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Transcribed from:  The History of Florida:  Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1923.

ACOSTA, TRACY L., state agent for Florida of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company, is one 
of the able insurance men of Jacksonville, and one of the highly esteemed citizens of Duval
County.  He has spent his life in this line of business and is one of the best informed men 
in his line in the South.  Mr. ACOSTA was born at Starke, Bradford County, Florida, 
November 18, 1862, a son of EUSTACE JOHN and KATHERINE ISABEL (HATCHER) ACOSTA, he born in 
Fernandina, Florida, in 1819, and died in 1884, and she born in 1820, and died in 1890.  They
had eight children, three of whom are living, and of them all TRACY L. ACOSTA was the 
seventh in order of birth.  EUSTACE JOHN ACOSTA carried on a general merchandise business at
Traders Hill, Georgia, and was also in the same line of business at Blackshear, Georgia, and 
at the same time was postmaster.  He was also connected with the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad
Company, and was always a man of importance in his community.  During the war between the 
two sections of the country he served in the paymaster's department of the Confederate Army.
In politics he was a democrat, although aside from serving as postmaster he did not hold 
public office.  Fraternally he was a Mason.

First attending the graded school of Blackshear, Georgia, TRACY L. ACOSTA later became a 
student of the high school of Savannah, Georgia, and then attended the University of Georgia, 
at Athens, Georgia.  After completing his studies Mr. ACOSTA engaged in the life insurance 
business at Blackshear, but subsequently went to Charleston, South Carolina, and continued 
to operate in the same line in that city for two years.  In 1895 he located at Jacksonville,
Florida as the state agent of his present company, and has continued with it ever since, 
operating out of Jacksonville.  Under his energetic management this company has built up a 
very large business throughout the state, and he has acquired a personal high standing and 
comfortable means.

A Mason, Mr. ACOSTA maintains membership with Solomon Lodge, F. and A.M., and with all the 
bodies of the Scottish Rite, in which he has been advanced to the thirty-second degree, and 
he also belongs to Morocco Temple, A.A.O.N.M.S.  He is a member of the Seminole and Florida 
Country Clubs, and the Florida Yacht Club.  For one term he was a member of the Board of 
Public Works of Jacksonville, and in that capacity was able to forward some important projects 
for the general welfare of the city.  Politically he is a democrat, and ardent in his support 
of party principles and candidates, although not himself an aspirant for public honors.

Mr. ACOSTA married CORA BAILEY, and they had four children:  TRACY; JAMES BAILEY, who died 
at the age of three years; JOHN S.; and KATHERINE, who is attending school.  The two sons 
are veterans of the World war.