The USG Jacksonville plant at the moment.
In 1896, recognizing the worth of Florida’s cypress and timberlands, Wellington Wilson Cummer established the Cummer Lumber Firm at Sandfly Level. The sawmill shortly grew into the Jacksonville space’s largest employer. With enterprise thriving, the adjoining space developed right into a group offering housing, retailers and different facilities for the mill employees. This space grew to become often known as Milldale.
Following Cummer’s demise in 1909, his sons Arthur and Waldo took over the corporate. Whereas Arthur and Ninah Cummer’s Riverside property would later grow to be the Cummer Museum of Artwork and Gardens, the previous mill web site took on new industrial roles. It was repurposed right into a drydock yard for the George D. Auchter Firm and, later, a wallboard manufacturing plant for america Gypsum Firm (USG). In 1939, USG opened its Jacksonville wallboard plant on the outdated Cummer property. Using the unique railroad for transporting uncooked supplies, the 42.8-acre facility grew right into a 700,000-square-foot industrial operation, at one level that includes its personal paper mill to supply chipboard paper completely for USG’s gypsum merchandise.
Right now, USG stands because the nation’s largest distributor of wallboard and the main producer of gypsum merchandise. Amongst its most acknowledged manufacturers are SHEETROCK, FIBEROCK, and Tuff Cover. The Jacksonville plant is certainly one of USG’s largest operations, producing over 23 million sheets of wallboard yearly. It additionally serves as a key distribution middle for merchandise together with DUROCK cement board, FIBEROCK gypsum fiber panels, wallboard equipment, and dry setting-type compounds. From Jacksonville, these merchandise are shipped nationwide in addition to to markets throughout Central and South America.
2. A Buffalo, New York connection
East 57th Road in an space of Milldale platted because the Charles E. Bell Subdivision.
The guts of Milldale was formally laid out because the Charles E. Bell Subdivision, named in honor of native actual property developer Charles E. Bell. Born in Buffalo, New York, on January 11, 1870, Bell was the son of James S. Bell, who had been affiliated with the agency of Pratt & Firm in Buffalo. In 1880, the elder Bell relocated the household to Jacksonville to pursue alternatives in actual property. Following in his father’s footsteps, Charles E. Bell additionally entered the true property enterprise.
Bell’s Subdivision primarily served the African American communities of Milldale and close by Panama Park within the early twentieth century. It was formally annexed into the Metropolis of Jacksonville in 1925. A lingering vestige of segregation, the streets inside Bell’s Subdivision stay disconnected from the historically white sections of Panama Park situated instantly to the west.
3.The Cummer Avenue Enterprise District
The intersection of East 57th Road and Evergreen Avenue was as soon as the middle of Milldale’s enterprise district.
Throughout the operation of the Cummer Lumber Firm mill, Cummer Avenue served because the group’s major thoroughfare. Between East 56th and East 59th Streets, a cluster of companies supported the encircling neighborhoods, the lumber mill, and different close by industries. These institutions included Mary Reid Medication, William A. Suiter Dry Items, and the Clarence E. Haight Division Retailer. North of East 59th Road, the west facet of Cummer Avenue was lined with a number of African American residences.
Cummer Avenue was annexed into the Metropolis of Jacksonville in 1932. Following the mill’s closure, the road was renamed Evergreen Avenue. Over time, your entire district alongside Evergreen Avenue was step by step cleared and redeveloped for industrial use, erasing the historic cloth of the unique group.