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Green Cove Springs is a city in Clay County, Florida, United States. The
population was 5,378 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by
the U.S. Census Bureau is 5,990. It is the county seat of Clay County.
The city is named after the portion of the St. Johns River upon which the city
is built. The river bends here, and the area is sheltered by trees that are
perennially green.
Green Cove Springs was founded in 1816 when a sawmill was built on a land grant
from Spain. First inhabited over 7,000 years ago by natives drawn by the mineral
springs, Green Cove Springs was established in 1854 as White Sulfur Springs.
Renamed in 1866, it became the county seat in 1871.
Tourism was the primary economic base until the end of the century, when Henry
Flagler's railroad began taking tourist further south into Florida. In 1895, a
Great Freeze destroyed the areas citrus crops, and tourism all but ended. The
1920s saw renewed development with automobile traffic bringing in tourists
again. The Great Depression of the 1930s saw the end of growth again for the
city.
During World War II, Green Cove Spring again saw growth when the US Navy opened
the Benjamin Lee Auxiliary Air Field. After the war, the Navy constructed 13
piers along the St. Johns River to house a "Mothball Fleet" of some 600 vessels.
In 1960, the Navy decommissioned the base and relocated the vessels. In 1984,
the city annexed the former base into the city to utilize it for further growth
and development as the Clay County Port and Reynolds Industrial Park.
Green Cove Springs is the birthplace of Charles E. Merrill (1885-1956), one of
the founders of Merrill, Lynch & Company. The town's spring is described by his
son James Merrill in the poem "Two From Florida," published in The Inner Room
(1988).