Hopkins, Florida facts for kids
Hopkins, also known as South Melbourne, was once a small town in Brevard County, Florida, United States. Today, it is part of the larger city of Melbourne.
The Story of Hopkins
The town of Hopkins began because of a man named George W. Hopkins. He started the Union Cypress Company around 1910 to 1915. This company built large sawmills on the south side of Crane Creek in what is now Melbourne. These mills cut down cypress and pine trees.
Building a Town from Trees
George Hopkins bought a huge amount of land, about 100,000 acres (which is about 400 square kilometers!). This land was in southwestern Brevard County and Osceola County. To get the timber from these forests to his mills, Hopkins built a special train line called the Union Cypress Railroad. This railroad carried logs all the way from Deer Park in Osceola County to his sawmills.
Life in a Company Town
The Hopkins operation grew so big that it became a "company town." This means the company owned most of the town and provided homes and services for its workers. At its busiest, about 500 men worked there! The town had its own company store, a hospital, a post office, and even a train station for the FEC railroad.
Lumber and Its Uses
George Hopkins became one of the most successful businessmen in Brevard County in the early 1900s. He worked with his son-in-law, William H. Kempfer, to help people settle in the Deer Park area. The lumber products from Hopkins were sent all over Florida using the Florida East Coast Railroad. Many bridges, including the first one to cross the Indian River at Cocoa, were built with wood from the Union Cypress Company.
In 1920, the main cypress mill burned down, but it was quickly rebuilt. The mill kept working even after George Hopkins passed away in 1925. It provided wood for the big building boom of the 1920s. Eventually, the Hopkins sawmills closed because most of the valuable timber in the Deer Park area had been cut down. However, the Kempfer Sawmill, which is related to the original company, still operates near Deer Park today. It continues to provide cypress wood and mulch for the Brevard and Osceola areas.
