Duval County History takes place in 1822. It was named for William Pope DuVal, Territorial Governor of Florida from 1822 to 1834. When Duval County was created on the same day as Jackson County, it covered a massive area, from the Suwannee River on the west to a line running from Jacksonville to the mouth of the Suwannee River on the east. The momentum to merge Duval County and the City of Jacksonville began to accelerate in the early to mid-1960's. On October 1, 1968, the government of Duval County was merged with the government of the City of Jacksonville, although the Duval County cities of Atlantic Beach, Baldwin, Jacksonville Beach, and Neptune Beach are not included in the corporate limits of Jacksonville. In the early 1990s these three beach cities tried to form Ocean County, but the idea was eventually dropped.