GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The winds of the Civil War had barely died out when tourists began flocking to Florida. The feel of the warm spring waters beckoned them. At first, they came for the “water cure”. Normally, spring water feels frigid to us Floridians in the summer, but when the air is colder than the water temperature the spring feels warm. The tourists loved it!

Dr. Applegate completed the construction of the Clarendon Hotel in the springtime of 1872. Today, Green Cove Springs City Hall sits where the hotel was once located. The good doctor was from Indiana and was assigned to Florida after the Civil War in 1867 with the Freedmen’s Bureau. Bureau operations were located at the Magnolia Hotel during Reconstruction.

Dr. Applegate later collaborated with John H. Harris, coordinating the operations of the Clarendon Hotel in Green Cove Springs as well. While Harris managed the bottled water business from New York, Dr. Applegate lectured on the benefits of sulfur water to those who sought the “cure”. The “Water Cure Company” flourished thanks to Dr. Applegate’s lectures, prescribing, dispensing and even shipping of the sulfur water from the spring in Green Cove to New York.

While the Clarendon Hotel was destroyed by fire on April 3, 1900, Applegate and his wife, Jenny, resided in Cottage A of the hotel until his death in 1919. Cottage A is now the River Park Inn B&B, next door to city hall. The hotel was replaced by the Qui- Si –Sana and that stood till the city hall was built.

Several other hoteliers discovered the spring and Florida’s great winter weather. They built a dozen hotels and boarding houses in the area surrounding the spring.

Sadly, none of those buildings exist anymore due to fire, storms, lack of maintenance and development progress.

Wintering in Green Cove Springs became quite popular with wealthy northerners from places like Massachusetts, Philadelphia and New York. The most prominent of these visitors was the Borden Family of Borden’s Condensed Milk fame. The family-owned several houses in town and even purchased a dairy out in the countryside. Penelope Borden’s home is still standing on Walnut Street and is the school district’s Professional Development Center. When it came time for the county to build a new jail and courthouse, the Bordens donated the land those buildings stand on today.

The 1890 Historic Courthouse and 1894 Old County Jail now are decorated for the 2021 holiday season. Everyone is invited to come to see the lights on the oak trees, buildings and lamp posts.

Visiting ladies, many who were here for the entire season, formed the Village Improvement Association which remains the oldest woman’s club in Florida. Their clubhouse is at 17 Palmetto Avenue in Green Cove Springs and is a hub for community activity year-round. The gents spent time golfing, hunting and fishing.

Both genders enjoyed the nature excursions the hotels offered – the beginnings of ecological tourism in Clay County. Some visitors loved it here so much they retired here, just as they do today. Today the spring pool isn’t open in the winter, the reverse of the original use schedule. The only visitor in the spring in winter is our juvenile manatee.