The Union Cypress Company operated a three-story double-band sawmill in Melbourne, Florida, built in 1912. The small company town of Hopkins (now South Melbourne), named after George W. Hopkins, the owner, 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 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 swamps.
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, just east of the St. Johns River, Patterson (now June Park), just east of Interstate 95 (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 George W. Hopkins died.
In 1924, the company received a contract to provide lumber for the first bridge between Titusville and Merritt Island.
The Foshee Manufacturing Company took over operations and rebuilt the railroad in 1928, but the Great Depression 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.
Famous quotes containing the words union, cypress and/or company:
“My Christian friends, in bonds of love, whose hearts in sweetest union join,
Your friendship’s like a drawing band, yet we must take the parting hand.
Your company’s sweet, your union dear; Your words delightful to my ear,
Yet when I see that we must part, You draw like cords around my heart.”
—John Blain (18th century)
“When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)
“The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)