to
Update
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.
First inhabited over 7,000 years ago by natives drawn by the warm mineral spring. The Green Cove Springs area was first developed by George E. Clarke in 1816 when he was provided land, under a Spanish land grant to build a sawmill. 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, the 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.
The period immediately before and during World War II again brought new growth to Green Cove Spring. In September 1940, the U.S. Navy opened Naval Air Station Lee Field in honor of Ensign Bejamin Lee who had lost his life in a crash at Killinghome, England during World War I. In August 1943, the facility was renamed Naval Air Station Green Cove Springs (Lee Field). After the war, NAS Green Cove Springs was downgraded in status to a Naval Auxiliary Air Station (NAAS) as part of the greater NAS Jacksonville complex. The Navy also constructed 13 piers along the St. Johns River to house a "Mothball Fleet" of some 600 vessels. In 1960, the Navy decommisoned the air station, the pier facility 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).
Green Cove Springs is also the birthplace of Augusta Savage née Augusta Christine Fells (February 29 1892 - March 26 1962) Savage was an African American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance.