The Union Cypress Company operated a three-story double-band

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

Melbourne, Florida Melbourne ( ) is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located southeast of Orlando, Florida, Orlando along Florida's Space Coast, named because of the region's proximity to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. The city ...

, built in 1912. The small

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

Hopkins Hopkins is an English and Welsh patronymic surname derived from the personal name Hopkin and the genitive ending -''s''. Hopkin is itself a pet form of the name Hobb, a shortening of Robert (with alteration of the initial consonant). Notable peop ...

(now

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at the 2021 ...

), named after its owner George W. Hopkins, 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 p ...

in Melbourne across the

St. Johns River The St. Johns River () is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and is the most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders 12 counties. The drop in elevation from River s ...

to Deer Park. From there, where the logging operation was based, branch lines fanned out into the

bald cypress ''Taxodium distichum'' (baldcypress, bald-cypress, bald cypress, swamp cypress; ; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a w ...

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 Omega (, ; uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numerals, Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value ...

, 1.5 miles east of the county line between Osceola County and

Brevard County Brevard County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. It is on the Atlantic coast of eastern Central Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county se ...

, Agnes, about a mile west of the

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) 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'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

, just east of the

Patterson Patterson may refer to: People * Patterson (surname) * Patterson family Places ;Australia * Patterson railway station ;Canada * Pattersons Corners, Ontario * Patterson Township, Ontario * Patterson, Calgary a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta. ...

(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 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

( SR 9), and Gagner (now West Melbourne), a couple miles from the east end. The Kissimmee-Melbourne Road (part of the

Dixie Highway Dixie Highway was a United States auto trail first planned in 1914 to connect the Midwest with the South. It was part of a system and was expanded from an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final system is better understood as a network o ...

, later

SR 24 Route 24, or Highway 24, can refer to: International * European route E24 Australia * Lyell Highway (Tasmania) * Central Arnhem Road, NT Austria * Verbindungsspange Rothneusiedel Bolivia * Route 24 (Bolivia), National Route 24 (Bolivia) ...

, 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 Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. A new

fireproof Fireproofing is rendering something ( structures, materials, etc.) resistant to fire, or incombustible; or material for use in making anything fire-proof. It is a passive fire protection measure. "Fireproof" or "fireproofing" can be used as a ...

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 Merritt Island is a peninsula, commonly referred to as an island, in Brevard County, Florida, United States, located on the eastern Florida coast, along the Atlantic Ocean. It is also the name of an unincorporated town in the central and sout ...

. 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), Ame ...

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

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

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

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 Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

, 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