It was downright cool this morning- 41 degrees! Glad I packed long sleeves....
First stop was to the town of LaCrosse, Florida for a marker there. This is a not much town, all the way up to 310 people!
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| The town hall. |
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| View of the city in 1976 |
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| Need new shirts- they are now up to 310! |
The
LaCrosse area was settled before the Civil War. Cotton was the chief crop. John
Eli Futch was a cotton buyer who built a warehouse for cotton, a store to serve
the growers, and his home near the store. This store became the first post
office and Mrs. Futch named the town LaCrosse. The post office was established
April 22, 1881, and the town incorporated December 17, 1897. Before the boll
weevil ended the cotton era, LaCrosse had two cotton gins and grist mills.
Naval stores was also a prominent industry until this activity ended in the
1940s. The town was a shipping point for potatoes for many years and had a
large cooper's shed which built barrels for shipping the potatoes by rail from
a depot here. It is still an important farming area, producing corn,
vegetables, tobacco and livestock.
Next, I dipped back into Gainesville to stop again at Devil's Millhopper State Archaeological Park, to get a stamp there. Also got a pin for San Felasco Hammock Park, if I don't already have one! This park is also a National Historic Landmark!
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| The Visitor Center |
Front Text)
The naval stores industry was important to maritime power worldwide. Pine tar and pitch were used to seal wooden ships and protect sails and rigging. When settlers came to America - in Florida (1565), in Virginia (1607) and in Massachusetts (1620) - they found vast pine forests with resinous tar and pitch, a scarce commodity for European competitors with wooden fleets. Settlers at first produced pine pitch and tar by distilling resin-soaked fat pine wood from dead tree logs, limbs and knots, covering them with soil and burning them to yield tar and charcoal. After fat pine wood became scarce, pitch was made by chopping deep cavities or "boxes" near the base of living trees to collect gum. Only crude gum was exported until simple distillation techniques separated volatile turpentine from the residual rosin poured hot into barrels for domestic use or export. During the next three hundred years, with little change, this forest product industry prospered, first in the Carolinas, then Georgia and Florida to become a major U.S. industry. Production of gum was greatly accelerated and tree life protected when the Herty clay cups, introduced in early 1900's, replaced cut boxes.
(Reverse Text)
From 1909 until 1923, Florida led the nation in pine gum production. In 1909, the peak year in the U.S.A. gum yielded 750,000 barrels of turpentine and 2.5 million barrels of rosin. The 1910 census listed 27,2ll men and 3l6 women, mostly blacks, working in the industry with 65 percent in Florida. Fairbanks, Florida was a turpentine still town with the Mize family operation processing ten 50-gallon barrels of crude gum at a time. This still required six crops of 10,000 faces (an area where streaks of bark are removed) and each crop covered 400 acres. As recently as 1951, 105 fire stills operated around Gainesville. The Mize family operated the Fairbanks still until 1950. Many of the buildings (the cooper's shed, machine shop and worker homes) still stand. Ellis Mize (1882-1967) donated land with a lake bearing his name to the University of Florida's forestry education program. In 1948, they deeded this private cemetery on that property to the Fairbanks Baptist Church. Because of his love for the pine tree industry, Mize had his granite tombstone carved to resemble a working facepine tree. This marker is dedicated to all who toiled to provide an income for families and communities and resinous products worldwide.
The naval stores industry was important to maritime power worldwide. Pine tar and pitch were used to seal wooden ships and protect sails and rigging. When settlers came to America - in Florida (1565), in Virginia (1607) and in Massachusetts (1620) - they found vast pine forests with resinous tar and pitch, a scarce commodity for European competitors with wooden fleets. Settlers at first produced pine pitch and tar by distilling resin-soaked fat pine wood from dead tree logs, limbs and knots, covering them with soil and burning them to yield tar and charcoal. After fat pine wood became scarce, pitch was made by chopping deep cavities or "boxes" near the base of living trees to collect gum. Only crude gum was exported until simple distillation techniques separated volatile turpentine from the residual rosin poured hot into barrels for domestic use or export. During the next three hundred years, with little change, this forest product industry prospered, first in the Carolinas, then Georgia and Florida to become a major U.S. industry. Production of gum was greatly accelerated and tree life protected when the Herty clay cups, introduced in early 1900's, replaced cut boxes.
(Reverse Text)
From 1909 until 1923, Florida led the nation in pine gum production. In 1909, the peak year in the U.S.A. gum yielded 750,000 barrels of turpentine and 2.5 million barrels of rosin. The 1910 census listed 27,2ll men and 3l6 women, mostly blacks, working in the industry with 65 percent in Florida. Fairbanks, Florida was a turpentine still town with the Mize family operation processing ten 50-gallon barrels of crude gum at a time. This still required six crops of 10,000 faces (an area where streaks of bark are removed) and each crop covered 400 acres. As recently as 1951, 105 fire stills operated around Gainesville. The Mize family operated the Fairbanks still until 1950. Many of the buildings (the cooper's shed, machine shop and worker homes) still stand. Ellis Mize (1882-1967) donated land with a lake bearing his name to the University of Florida's forestry education program. In 1948, they deeded this private cemetery on that property to the Fairbanks Baptist Church. Because of his love for the pine tree industry, Mize had his granite tombstone carved to resemble a working facepine tree. This marker is dedicated to all who toiled to provide an income for families and communities and resinous products worldwide.
Next was a visit to the burg of Waldo Florida, for three markers.
Waldo made the national news a while back as probably the worst speed trap city in the United States- the town police admitted to it, and the police force was disbanded as a result.
There were, as I said three markers- one was a civil war throwback, the other for the town.
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| This is the town Veteran memorial, to servicemen, police, fire and ems. |
Earleton is named for General Elias B. Earle (1821-1893) who received
government land grants in Florida for his service in the U.S./Mexican War
(1846-48). Born into a prominent South Carolina family, Gen. Earle fought in
the Palmetto Regiment, enlisted as a private, and at the war’s end received the
honorary commission of General from the Governor of South Carolina. He moved to
the western shore of Lake Santa Fe with his wife and four children between 1856
and 1860. When the Civil War began, Gen. Earle owned a 2000-acre cotton
plantation north of here and had 50 slaves, making him one of the largest slave
holders in Alachua County. A colonel of the Seventh Florida Regiment, Earle
joined Capt. J.J. Dickison’s Company H for the 1864 Battle of Gainesville,
leading an infantry of ninety men down what is now E. University Ave. After the
war, Earle became a director for the canal company connecting Lake Santa Fe to
Lake Alto and president of the Green Cove Springs to Melrose Railroad. His
son-in-law, German botanist Baron Hans von Luttichau (1845-1926) created the
“Collins-Belvedere Azalea Gardens” in Earleton, introducing Formosa azaleas to
Florida. Earle is buried in the family plot at Eliam Cemetery in Melrose.
(Reverse text)
St. John’s Episcopal Church and Cemetery were established at this site in the late 1870s by English settlers. Completed in 1880, the church was one of the first carpenter gothic chapels in Florida. It was at the time known as the mission at Balmoral and the Lake Santa Fe Mission. When Trinity Episcopal Church (still standing) was completed in Melrose in 1886, this smaller church was sold for $15 and torn down. The cemetery was established in 1878 and held between 60-70 graves at the turn of the 20th Century. Little is known about who is buried there because the records were lost when the Diocesan headquarters burned during the Jacksonville fire of 1901. The only legible headstone belongs to Emma Lucy Hilton, who was born in England in 1827, and died in Earleton in 1884. On the banks of Lake Santa Fe (east of here) sat the Balmoral Hotel, which catered to northern tourists who came by train to Waldo and then by steamboat through the Lake Alto canal. Balmoral was an impressive two-story, U-shaped structure and a popular resort through the 1880s, until the 1894-95 freezes ruined the local economy. The hotel was turned into a private residence and eventually burned. No trace is left.
(Reverse text)
St. John’s Episcopal Church and Cemetery were established at this site in the late 1870s by English settlers. Completed in 1880, the church was one of the first carpenter gothic chapels in Florida. It was at the time known as the mission at Balmoral and the Lake Santa Fe Mission. When Trinity Episcopal Church (still standing) was completed in Melrose in 1886, this smaller church was sold for $15 and torn down. The cemetery was established in 1878 and held between 60-70 graves at the turn of the 20th Century. Little is known about who is buried there because the records were lost when the Diocesan headquarters burned during the Jacksonville fire of 1901. The only legible headstone belongs to Emma Lucy Hilton, who was born in England in 1827, and died in Earleton in 1884. On the banks of Lake Santa Fe (east of here) sat the Balmoral Hotel, which catered to northern tourists who came by train to Waldo and then by steamboat through the Lake Alto canal. Balmoral was an impressive two-story, U-shaped structure and a popular resort through the 1880s, until the 1894-95 freezes ruined the local economy. The hotel was turned into a private residence and eventually burned. No trace is left.
Then, a quick stop at Windsor Florida, for a National Register site, a house along the road:The Neilson house...
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| Mr. Perry a former Governor |
Then the Wal Mart Stop and back to the coach. Resting up this afternoon, then a group dinner tonight.
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