Skip to main content

Florida Friday; Enterprise, Volusia County

Back in 2015 I visited Enterprise off the shore of Lake Monroe east of Interstate 4 in Volusia County.


Enterprise is now a quasi-ghost town which is located at what was a fortunate location along the St. Johns River watershed via Lake Monroe.  Enterprise was founded by approximately 20 settlers during 1841 near the end of the Second Seminole War.  Enterprise was meant to replace the major port of Palatka which was burned northward on the St. Johns River during the beginning of the Second Seminole War in 1835.  Enterprise was founded on land which was once part of Fort Kingsbury and would eventually become a major port along the St. Johns River.

Enterprise became the third County Seat of Mosquito County in 1843 due to it being one of the larger towns in Central Florida.  In 1844 Mosquito County split into Orange County and St. Lucia County which led to Enterprise being removed as the County Seat in 1845.  By 1854 Enterprise had a large 50 room hotel called the "Brock House" and the community became popular due to ease of access to recreational activities on Lake Monroe.  Volusia County split from Orange County in 1854 and Enterprise was selected as the first County Seat.  In 1877 Enterprise incorporated as a City but in 1887 the Volusia County Seat moved to DeLand.

In 1885 the Enterprise to Titusville spur of the Atlantic Coast, St. Johns & Indian Railroad opened.  The new line was serviced by several small towns between Enterprise and Titusville; Osteen, Cow Creek, Pennichaw and Maytown.  Enterprise remained one of the larger towns in Central Florida until an outbreak of the Yellow Fever wiped out much of the population in 1888.  Orange crop freezes in 1894 and 1895 pushed out most of the remaining residents in Enterprise which led to the community dissolving it's City Charter.

The last major industry in Enterprise was a coal power plant which opened in 1926.  Said coal power plant shuttered in 1994 and demolished in 2007.  The Enterprise to Titusville Railroad was shuttered in the 1950s along with much of the sidings listed above.  Given how close Enterprise was to communities like Deltona it managed to survive, most of the structures are from the 1880s.








Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Interstate 10S and the original Interstate 110 in California

Interstate 10S is a short spur of Interstate 10 along San Bernardino Freeway in downtown Los Angeles.  Interstate 10S begins at the Santa Ana Freeway (US Route 101) and extends east to Interstate 5 where it merges into mainline Interstate 10.  Interstate 10S is one of the oldest freeway segments in Los Angeles having been part of US Routes 60, 70 and 99 when it was part of the corridor of the Ramona Expressway.  The current corridor of Interstate 10S was assigned as Chargeable Corridor H following the passage of the 1956 Federal Highway Aid Act.  Interstate 110 was a short-lived designation which comprised the segment San Bernardino Freeway from US Route 101 to Interstate 5 between 1964-1968.  The original Interstate 110 was dropped as a Chargeable Corridor during 1965 and consolidated as Interstate 10S during 1968.   The original Interstate 110 can be seen as the blog cover photo as it was featured on the 1964 Division of Highways Map.  Below the entire 0.65-mile length of Interstate

Vicksburg Bridge (Vicksburg, MS)

  Located a few hundred feet downriver from the Old Vicksburg Bridge, the Vicksburg Bridge, or the “New” Bridge, serves as the city’s vehicular crossing of the Mississippi River on the main highway connecting Vicksburg with northeastern Louisiana to the west and the state capital of Jackson to the east. The completion of the original Vicksburg Bridge in 1930 was seen as a huge success and the bridge proved to be a profitable entity for both road and railroad interests along the path of the Dixie Overland Highway and the subsequent US Highway 80 corridor. In the years after the creation of the National Interstate Highway System, planning commenced on a new bridge at the site that would relieve the congestion on the existing bridge while providing for a more modern crossing of the river that would be safe for all vehicles. The construction of the new bridge at Vicksburg was completed in 1973 and its design intentionally mimics that of its predecessor nearby. This was due in large part