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Orange Park is a town in Clay County, Florida, USA. The population was 9,081
at the 2000 census. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, the
town had grown to 9,243.
The name reflects the hope of its founders for a fruit-growing industry, but
their crops were destroyed in the Great Freeze of 1894-95. Despite recovery
elsewhere, the crops never came back to Orange Park.
Television station WJXX is licensed to Orange Park.
Founded in 1877 by the Florida Winter Home and Improvement Company. Following
the Civil War, the company purchased several thousand acres of the McIntosh
plantation at Laurel Grove, for the purpose of creating a southern retreat and
small farming community. The town was incorporated in 1879 by a special act of
the Florida Legislature.
Orange Park was the home of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, one of
ten regional centers for primate research. The Orange Park center, established
in 1930 by psychologist Robert Yerkes and Yale University, was the first
laboratory in the United States for the study of non-human primates. In 1956,
Emory University took over operation of the Center. In 1965, the center was
relocated to the campus of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2002, the
Center was renamed the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, though
officially the "Regional" name still applies.
Lynyrd Skynyrd vocalist Ronnie Van Zant was buried at the Jacksonville Memorial
Gardens in Orange Park in 1977, but was relocated to an undisclosed location
after vandals broke into his and bandmate Steve Gaines tombs on June 29, 2000.
Van Zant's casket was pulled out and spilled on the ground. The bag containing
Gaines' ashes was torn open and some spilled into the grass. Their mausoleums
remain as memorials for fans to visit. "