The Union Cypress Company operated a three-story double-band sawmill in Melbourne, Florida, built in 1912. The small

company town A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...

of Hopkins (now South Melbourne), named after its owner

George W. Hopkins William Henry Gleason (June 28, 1829 – November 8, 1902) was an American politician from Florida. He was Florida's second Lieutenant Governor and was very briefly, acting Governor. Early life William Henry Gleason was born in 1829 in Richfo ...

, was built at the site. The company built a private railroad, often known as the Union Cypress Company Railroad, west from a connection with the

Florida East Coast Railway The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida, currently owned by Grupo México. Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a pr ...

in Melbourne across the St. Johns River to Deer Park. From there, where the logging operation was based, branch lines fanned out into the bald cypress

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s. Other stations along the line were Grass Mere or Omega, 1.5 miles east of the county line between Osceola County and Brevard County, Agnes, about a mile west of the St. Johns River,

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...

, just east of the St. Johns River,

Patterson Patterson may refer to: People * Patterson (surname) Places ;Canada * Pattersons Corners, Ontario * Patterson Township, Ontario *Patterson, Calgary a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta. ;United States of America * Patterson, Arkansas * Patterson ...

(now June Park), just east of

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1, US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between M ...

( SR 9), and Gagner (now West Melbourne), a couple miles from the east end. The Kissimmee-Melbourne Road (part of the Dixie Highway, later SR 24, now US 192 ( SR 500)), which opened in 1918, was closed in 1923 and 1924 for repairs. During that time, the company carried automobiles across the swamps for $1 each. The mill burned down in August 1919, following a large fire that February in downtown Melbourne. A new fireproof mill was begun but never completed, and the company shut down in 1925 after

died. In 1924, the company received a contract to provide lumber for the first bridge between Titusville and Merritt Island. The

Foshee Manufacturing Company Foshee may refer to: People * Douglas Foshee, American businessman * Edgar Foshee, American military officer * Eugene Crum Foshee (1937-2017), American politician * Paul Foshee (1932–2020), American politician * Taryn Foshee (born 1985), America ...

took over operations and rebuilt the railroad in 1928, but the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

hit and put the operation out of business. The buildings and railroad were torn down and sold in 1932. Many supports from the old trestle across the St. Johns River remain, as do a few of the old company buildings at the Melbourne end.

References

Photos and history of the company and railroad
compiled by historian Ed Vosatka, current photos and web page by photographer Peb Elliott
A plat of the company's property
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

, surveyed 1915 to 1918)
A plat of the town of Hopkins
(

, surveyed April 1914) *Melbourne Centennial Book. Noreda B. McKemy and Elaine Murray Stone. July 4, 1976. Library of Congress 76-020298. *Melbourne and Eau Gallie. Karen Raley and Ann Raley Flott. Arcadia Publishing. 2002. .
1943 Aerial Photograph
Shows the S-curve west of present-day Country Club Boulevard and University Boulevard. Locate the Melbourne Municipal Golf Course at the top, and follow Country Club down.
Main Page for online graphics collection
Followed "Aerial Photos" to get to the above image. {{DEFAULTSORT:Union Cypress Company Defunct Florida railroads Florida logging railroads Melbourne, Florida 1912 establishments in Florida