My trip on the St John’s today was to physically find Hobkins canal. An ill attempt to connect the St. Johns to the Indian River. George Washington Hobkins was an experienced lumberman, surveyor, and railroad builder from Michigan. From 1902-1907 he purchased 104,000 acres of choice country for $1.04 an acre around a small ranching community called crabgrass. This land lay west of Eau Gallie and Melbourne stretching for miles along the St. John’s with 58,000 acres of virgin forest. This included 240 million board feet of Longleaf and Slash Pine, on the uplands and 225 million board feet of Bald Cypress in the magnificent Jane Green, Penny Wah and Wolf Creek swamps. In 1911 Hopkins constructed his saw mill in south Melbourne, which was called Hobkins. The mill was located just South of Crane Creek on the Florida East Coast Railroad Line. By 1912 Hobkin’s rail line (Union Cypress Railroad) from Crabgrass (Deer Park) to the mill was complete with a spur line into the Jane Green Swamp, and 300 men on payroll. By March 1914 there would be 600. With Penny Wah and Wolf Creek swamps miles to the South of Hobkin’s rail line a canal from lake Washington to Crane Creek and the mill would have saved time and money. Although Hobkin’s Canal was never completed, from 1912-1932 all the virgin pine and cypress that literally took centuries to create was totally gone in just 20 years, and will never be again. I have paddled and hiked thru, all the majesty and awe of these amazing swamps and they are breathtaking even today. I can’t imagine what they were then.
Mark Nathan
St. John’s River Guide
Historian
