• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About Us
  • Videos
    • Featured Video
    • Foodie Friday
    • Monthly ReCap
  • Online E-Editions
    • This Week’s E-Editions
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
  • Social Media
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
  • Advertising
  • Local Jobs
  • Puzzles & Games
  • Circulation Request

The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

       

Click to join our weekly e-newsletter

  • Home
  • News
    • Land O’ Lakes
    • Lutz
    • Wesley Chapel/New Tampa
    • Zephyrhills/East Pasco
    • Business Digest
    • Senior Parks
    • Nature Notes
    • Featured Stories
    • Photos of the Week
    • Reasons To Smile
  • Sports
    • Land O’ Lakes
    • Lutz
    • Wesley Chapel/New Tampa
    • Zephyrhills and East Pasco
    • Check This Out
  • Education
  • Pets/Wildlife
  • Health
    • Health Events
    • Health News
  • What’s Happening
  • Sponsored Content
    • Closer Look
  • Homes
  • Obits
  • Public Notices

Ocklawaha River

Cummer Sons Cypress played huge role in Lacoochee

August 18, 2021 By Doug Sanders

Two events occurred in 1923 that would have a significant impact on the community of Lacoochee, in Northeast Pasco County.

Arthur and Waldo Cummer — as the grandsons of Jacob Cummer — brought the Cummer Sons Cypress Company to the county.

The fully electric cypress sawmill and box factory would go on to become one the largest sawmill operations in the United States.

The company also would play a role in providing jobs for survivors of the Rosewood Massacre, which occurred in January 1923.

Nearly a century ago, one of the largest sawmill operations in the United States was located in Lacoochee, in northeast Pasco County. (Courtesy of Bob McKinstry)

Contemporary news reports said that massacre — which destroyed the tiny Black community in Levy County — resulted directly from a white woman’s false claims that she’d been raped by a black man.

In his book, published in 2005, author William Powell Jones recounted how managers for Cummer “arranged for a train to drive through the swamps, picking up survivors of the Rosewood Massacre and offering them housing and employment in the brand-new colored quarters in Lacoochee.”

Arthur and Waldo Cummer’s father, Wellington Wilson Cummer, first arrived in town with his riding gear, complete with jodhpurs and boots, holding a riding crop under his arm.

“It was strange attire compared to the casual dress (of the day),” noted Nell Moody Woodcock, a long-time resident of Lacoochee and later a reporter for The Tampa Tribune.

Woodcock’s name is among nearly 100 links on the Pasco County history website, Fivay.org — featuring people sharing memories of the Cummer Sons Cypress Company.

Jacob Cummer, known as “Uncle Jacob” to family and friends, had vast timber holdings in several states.

Arthur Cummer explained why the company chose to locate in Lacoochee, in testimony given before the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission, in 1934.

“We located the sawmill plant at Lacoochee in order to be in reasonable reach,” Arthur Cummer said.

Described as a point of entry for what is now known as the Green Swamp of Florida, logs arrived at the new Lacoochee sawmill from land that totaled more than 50 square miles in Pasco, Sumter and Polk counties.

Bill McKinstry, a company manager for the Lacoochee sawmills, rides a logging train to Lacoochee on April 25, 1939. (Courtesy of Bob McKinstry)

The Green Swamp is one of the state’s largest watersheds as the headwaters for the Peace River, Withlacoochee River, Ocklawaha River and Hillsborough River.

In the 1920s it was “a vast reservoir of 100-year-old cypress trees,” as described by Woodcock, in her recollections on the Cummer mills in Lacoochee.

At its peak, workers lived in approximately 100 homes along sand streets with wood sidewalks in Lacoochee.

Cummer was the largest employer in Pasco County with more than 1,100 employees, and it was one of few employers across the country that provided jobs during the Great Depression.

Having the largest payroll in the county made the Lacoochee office a prime target — and the company fell victim to three masked bandits who escaped with $11,700 in cash.

The work was grueling.

Ronald Stanley, who was put on a logging train by his father one summer in the early 1940s, was among the workers.

He described the tough working conditions he faced, recorded on the Fivay.org website.

He awoke at daybreak and spent hours waist-deep hauling sawed-down cypress logs out of the swamp.

It was hot, and there were mosquitoes, and the danger of snakes and alligators.

“For all this summer fun, I was paid $.45 per hour (typically under $5 per day),” Stanley recalls on Fivay.org.

One of three steam shovels that had been used to dig out the Panama Canal later was purchased by the Cummer lumber company to haul logs at the Lacoochee sawmill. (Courtesy of Pioneer Florida Museum & Village)

During World War II, Cummer employed 50 German soldiers from the prisoner of war work camp in Dade City.

One POW was 18-year-old Arthur Lang, a tank commander from Erwin Rommel’s famed Afrika Korps.

He was smitten by a teenaged girl named Mildred.

He managed to exchange handwritten notes to Mildred when no one was looking. She worked with her mother at the Cummer’s crate mill.

“I regret it to this day that on the last day there, I could not shake her hand,” Lang wrote after he was back in Germany, after the war.

At Lacoochee, the Cummer operations were immense for this self-contained company town.

The sawmill alone measures 228 feet by 45 feet. The mill also included a veneer plant, which was 228 feet by 45 feet. It also had a crate factory, of 200 feet by 100 feet; and a lathe and shingle mill, with a capacity of 60,000 lathe per day, according to the story “Big Cypress Mill Completed at Lacoochee, Florida,” published in The Manufacturer’s Record on Nov. 22, 1923.

From 1934 to 1940, the Cummer mill in Lacoochee averaged 13 million board feet each year. The company set a record in 1937, producing 25 million board feet.

To make sure that it was not all work and no play, the company sponsored a semi-pro baseball team called the Lacoochee Indians.

That team won the Central Coast championship in 1947, in a league that also included San Antonio, Dade City and Brooksville.

James Timothy “Mudcat” Grant recorded memories of his father working at the Lacoochee mills. He later became the first black American League pitcher to win a World Series game in 1965.

Mudcat also recalls weekend movies starring Gene Autry and Roy Rogers.

“Every time I go to Angel Stadium, Gene (Autry) comes through, and we get a chance to speak,” Grant told the St. Petersburg Times on April 9, 1989. “The first thing he says is: ‘How is everything in Lacoochee?’”

Autry was the owner of the Angels Major League baseball team from 1961 to 1997.

Alyce Ferrell, who worked at the Lacoochee Post Office, met her future husband at a dance at the armory in Dade City.

He would fly low over Lacoochee in his Corsair F4U fighter aircraft and dip one wing of his plane. That was a signal to let Alyce know he needed to be picked up at the Army/Air base in Zephyrhills.

In 1945, Alyce married that instructor for Marine fighter pilots: Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr.

Years later ‘Ed McMahon’ would begin a 36-year career as the announcer and sidekick for television talk show host Johnny Carson.

During the decade of the 1950s, the Green Swamp was heavily logged by the Cummer Sons Cypress Company.

The company, which hummed along for decades, finally came to its end near the close of the 1950s.

“It took time to process all the logs which had been gathered at the Lacoochee sawmill, but the last cypress was finally milled on June 5, 1959,” wrote historian Alice Hall for The Tampa Tribune on July 14, 1984.

Although the community voted against incorporating as a town in 1954, several companies have attempted business operations at the old Cummer site including Wood Mosaic Corporation, Interpace, GH Lockjoint, and Cal-Maine Foods.

A precast concrete plant is currently up and operating as a supplier for major road projects in Florida. The Dade City Business Center bought this site in 2019 for $1.2 million and is leasing the land to the concrete plant. Nearly 100 new jobs are expected, once the plant is running at full capacity.

Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at .

Published August 18, 2021

Glimpse Florida’s ancient past at the Green Swamp

February 20, 2019 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Living on Florida’s densely populated coast, it’s almost impossible to believe that a 37,350-acre wilderness exists just an hour or so inland.

Giant, old oaks line the main hiking trail in the Green Swamp West Tract, just 5 miles from downtown Dade City. (Karen Haymon Long)

Known as the West Tract of the 110,000-acre Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve, this environmentally protected land offers glimpses of what Florida used to look like, and, hopefully, will look like way into the future.

This important natural treasure is a vital recharge area for the Florida Aquifer and contains the headwaters of four Florida rivers – the Hillsborough, Withlacoochee, Peace and a fraction of the Ocklawaha. It reaches into not only Pasco, but Polk, Lake, Sumter and Hernando counties.

Just 5 miles from downtown Dade City, the swamp’s West Tract offers 65 miles of trails for hikers, bikers and horseback riders.

On our recent visit on a Monday, we walked a half-hour from the parking lot on an unpaved service road just to get to the hiking trailhead that leads into the woods. This stretch, a section of the Florida National Scenic Trail, winds through dense woods overshadowed by giant old oaks, soaring slash and longleaf pines and mature magnolias.

The Green Swamp West Tract is open to hikers, campers, bikers and horseback riders who want to escape into the wilderness.

I’ve hiked all over the country, in many state and national parks, and have never seen so many ancient oaks in one place. For the next hour, we were alone in the peaceful woods, often with ponds and grassy waters on both sides of us.

The Green Swamp is known for its wildlife – white-tailed deer, hogs, bobcats, turtles, turkeys, raccoons, gray squirrels, alligators and all sorts of wading birds, but on our visit, we saw just birds – little blue herons, white ibis, a great blue heron and osprey. We did see evidence of hogs in one stretch of trail, where they had foraged in the muck.

Part of the trail we took is a section of the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail, and, on just about the whole length of our hike, we heard a chorus of birds calling back and forth.

The trail was easy to follow — thanks to orange paint slashes on trees along the way — so we never got lost. Twice, we had to climb over or walk around huge trees that had fallen across our path.

While I called the trail “wild,” my husband described it as “primitive,’’ but we both liked it that way.

The Green Swamp’s West Tract has picnic tables where visitors can enjoy a picnic lunch on the edge of the vast wilderness. The tract has no concessions, so come prepared.

We saw cypress domes ghosting from water.

Vast swaths of brown grasses swayed in the breeze.

We watched for snakes in clumps of brilliant green saw palmettos, and admired stately cabbage palms, Florida’s state tree.

And, just around every turn, we saw ponds or pools of water, some of it green, but some tea colored, too.

The Green Swamp is technically not a swamp, but “a mosaic of several different ecosystems,” according to the story anthology, “Rivers of the Green Swamp.”

One of Florida’s two largest wetlands – along with the Everglades – the Green Swamp is managed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD). Much of it is considered an environmentally sensitive habitat, and visitors are urged to stay on designated trails.

A map available at the tract entrance and online left much to be desired, with some roads bisecting the trail not marked or named and no trail lengths. We figured since the Florida Legislature long ago designated the Green Swamp “an area of critical state concern,” the state may not want hordes hiking in the area, so purposely makes maps vague.

Orange paint slashes on tree trunks lead the way through the main hiking trail in the Green Swamp’s West Tract. The trail is part of the Florida National Scenic Trail.

If that’s true, that’s fine with us. The fewer hikers the better to enjoy the solace of a good, long walk.

By chance, the trail we took was dry the day we went and closed to hog hunters. Dates when it is opened for hunting are posted at the main gate next to the parking lot and on SWFWMD’s website. (See Tips for the Trip).

We had read online that trails are sometimes too boggy to take, and, in the summertime, mosquitoes can be lethal. So we chose a dry, cool day to walk, and we were glad we did.

It was amazing how few people we saw – just one other hiker, two men on bikes, one with a dog on a leash, and a few men in pickup trucks driving on the service roads. We didn’t see anyone on horses. They are not rented out there, but horse owners are welcomed to bring them in if they stay on designated trails and carry proof of their horses’ current negative Coggins test.

The West Tract also has equestrian and primitive campsites, with pit and portable toilets, picnic tables and grills. Free permits are required, and campers are given the front gate lock combination so they can drive their gear into the campgrounds. There are no concession stands, so visitors should go prepared.

We don’t know if we would go back to camp there, but we’d like to return, maybe next time with our bikes.

Even now, I think of the quiet, of the watery beauty, and of those magnificent oaks — some older than our own state of Florida.

This map of the Green Swamp’s West Tract is more detailed than the ones online or available at the tract’s entrance. This one is posted near the tract picnic area.

Tips for the Trip
The Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve West Tract is at 13347 Ranch Road (off the U.S. 98 Bypass) about 5 miles from downtown Dade City, in East Pasco County.

  • Admission is free and trails are open daily, except when hunting is permitted. Before going, be sure to check on those hunting dates at tinyurl.com/y6m2wtsa.
  • Hours are sunrise to sunset. Maps are on the above website and at the tract entrance.
  • Picnic tables, portable toilets and campsites are also in the West Tract. Kayakers and boaters can put into a stretch of the Withlacoochee River, just down the road from the West Tract entrance.
  • For tract details, see tinyurl.com/y6m2wtsa, or call (352) 796-7211, ext. 4470.
  • Another place to visit the Green Swamp is Colt Creek State Park, at 16000 State Road 471 in Lakeland. For details, see FloridaStateParks.org.

For details on campgrounds, call 1-800-423-1476 (toll-free, Florida only) or (352) 796-7211, ext. 4470, or email .

By Karen Haymon Long

February 20, 2019

The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expeditions reveal Florida’s wild side

September 23, 2015 By Kathy Steele

Motorists zipping along Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando can’t see from their ribbon of asphalt how close they are to the wild side of Florida.

But the Green Swamp is all around.

Bear biologist Joe Guthrie snorkels at the Manatee Springs Park. In winter, manatees come to the spring in large numbers to enjoy its warm waters. (Photos courtesy of Carlton Ward Jr.)
Bear biologist Joe Guthrie snorkels at the Manatee Springs Park. In winter, manatees come to the spring in large numbers to enjoy its warm waters.
(Photos courtesy of Carlton Ward Jr.)

Often called the “liquid heart” of the state, the swamp is headwaters for four major rivers: Peace, Withlacoochee, Ocklawaha and Hillsborough.

Natural habitat, hiking trails, blueways and wildlife corridors spread across Polk, Lake, Sumter, Hernando and Pasco counties.

“This is wild Florida history in plain site,” said Carlton Ward Jr., a conservation photojournalist whose photographic art captures the beauty of the state’s wild side and its Cracker history of cowboys and ranches.

On Sept. 15, more than 100 people filled the Selby Auditorium on the campus of Saint Leo University for a presentation on the Florida Wildlife Corridor Expeditions, in 2012 and 2015.

Saint Leo’s School of Arts and Sciences, departments of Language Studies and the Arts, and Mathematics and Science sponsored the event.

Expedition members set up camp along the Apalachicola River, under a clear, star-studded night.
Expedition members set up camp along the Apalachicola River, under a clear, star-studded night.

“He is a very accomplished speaker, combining words and pictures that allow us to hear clearly the importance of conservation,” said Mary Spoto, the dean of Arts and Sciences. “It’s something good for our students to hear and also the public.”

The first expedition of 1,000 miles in 100 days traversed peninsular Florida from the Everglades National Park to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in southern Georgia.

The most recent expedition of 1,000 miles in 70 days began in January, following a path from central Florida, across the Panhandle to Alabama, ending at the Gulf Island National Seashore. Along the way “trail mixers” were held to invite the public to join in the trek.

The goal is to bring awareness about the need to protect and connect Florida’s rural lands, its waterways and the natural paths to habitats traveled by Florida’s diverse wildlife, including the Florida black bear and the Florida panther.

Ward sees his photographs as a way to connect art’s inspiration with science’s knowledge.

Nature photographer Carlton Ward Jr.
Nature photographer Carlton Ward Jr.

He collaborated with bear biologist Joe Guthrie and environmentalist Mallory Lykes Dimmitt on the “Florida Wildlife Expedition Corridor,” a book chronicling the 2012 expedition. A second book on the 2015 expedition will be published in November.

“I’ve always had a connection to conservation,” Ward said.

But he didn’t think of Florida first as his focus.

As a graduate student, he traveled on the first of nine trips to central and western Africa. But each time he came home, he noticed Florida’s changing landscape.

“There was a part of Florida that I knew was missing,” Ward said.

He began photographically to tell the story of Florida’s conservation through its cattle ranches, handed down through generations. He published “Florida Cowboys: Keepers of the Last Frontier” in 2009.

That multigenerational stewardship kept some of Florida’s wildlife habitats intact, said Ward, an eighth-generation Floridian.

“Some of the ranchers I’ve met are some of the best conservationists I know,” Ward said.

It was once possible, he said, to hike and camp for two to three nights without seeing a fence. But Florida’s population, which numbered about 2 million in the 1940s, is now about 20 million. Pressures from development are increasing, Ward said.

Early on the 10th day of the expedition, Carlton Ward Jr., set up his camera on shore and paddled along the Chassahowitzka River.
Early on the 10th day of the expedition, Carlton Ward Jr., set up his camera on shore and paddled along the Chassahowitzka River.

Research on the Florida black bear in 2010 revealed the disconnects along the wildlife corridors and the vast distances that are traveled during a life cycle.

A black bear, tagged with a GPS tracking collar and known as M34, went on a 500-mile walkabout through Florida from Sebring to nearly the Green Swamp in the Orlando area. The bear halted at I-4, in a location, where other species ended up as road kill trying to cross over to what should be natural habitat for bears.

But Ward said, “That bear couldn’t find a safe path to get there.”

Instead, it retreated southward somewhere near Fort Myers, where the collar automatically dropped off.

Ward remains optimistic, however, about the future.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Ward said. “We can accommodate a lot of people and sustain natural corridors.”

Wildlife underpasses and overpasses, for example, can preserve natural pathways and keep corridors connected.

“It’s not just about buying land,” he said. “It’s about incentivizing compatible land uses.”

His optimism springs also from the heroes he has met on the expeditions.

The Aucilla River flows from Georgia on the east side of Red Hills between Thomasville, Georgia, and Tallahassee.
The Aucilla River flows from Georgia on the east side of Red Hills between Thomasville, Georgia, and Tallahassee.

M.C. Davis, who died recently, created the Nokuse Plantation, which contains the largest pine leaf forest in the southeastern United States. Davis acquired more than 50,000 acres for his pine leaf restoration project, which borders Eglin Air Force Base in the Panhandle.

Davis partnered with Eglin and the Florida Department of Transportation to build three wildlife underpasses on U.S. 331.

Another hero is Kendall Schoelles, a third-generation oysterman. “That man is committed to a life from generations past,” Ward said.

In 2016, Ward said he would continue to focus efforts on preserving the wildlife corridor. One issue for Ward and other environmentalists is Amendment 1, which voters overwhelmingly approved in 2014. The constitutional amendment potentially could bring $700 million in real estate taxes into the state’s coffers to acquire conservation land.

However, lawmakers stirred controversy when they approved a budget with $88 million earmarked for land purchases.

“We have to stay loud about it for sure,” Ward said.

For information on the expeditions and the Florida Wildlife Corridor, visit FloridaWildlifeCorridor.org.

Published September 23, 2015

Primary Sidebar

Search

The Recap Presents…

Sponsored Content

Affordable Living At Club Wildwood

July 26, 2022 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Older adults in central and east Pasco County are discovering the charming manufactured home community of Club Wildwood … [Read More...] about Affordable Living At Club Wildwood

Jolie Smiles Helps Patients Rediscover Their Confidence

July 26, 2022 By Special to The Laker/Lutz News

Jolie Smiles, a denture and implant studio in Odessa, provides state-of-the-art dentistry and permanent solutions for … [Read More...] about Jolie Smiles Helps Patients Rediscover Their Confidence

More Posts from this Category

What’s Happening

08/08/2022 – Afterschool snacks

The Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative will host Chef Yamira Lee Johnson on Aug. 8 at 6:30 p.m., for a demonstration on easy, healthy recipes kids and parents can make for an afterschool bite. This is an online program for all ages. Register through the calendar feature at HCPLC.org. … [Read More...] about 08/08/2022 – Afterschool snacks

08/09/2022 – Butterfly gardening

The New River Library, 34043 State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel, will host a master gardener presentation on butterfly gardening on Aug. 9 at 2 p.m. Registration is online at PascoLibraries.org. … [Read More...] about 08/09/2022 – Butterfly gardening

08/09/2022 – Coffee with a deputy

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office will host “Coffee with PSO” on Aug. 9 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., at Wawa, 25155 Maren Way in Lutz. Deputies will be on hand to answer questions and to get to know the community. … [Read More...] about 08/09/2022 – Coffee with a deputy

08/09/2022 – Native Plant Society

The Nature Coast Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society will meet on Aug. 9 at 7 p.m., at Land O’ Lakes Heritage Park, 5401 Land O’ Lakes Blvd. There will be showing of the 2018 American documentary, “The Serengeti Rules,” directed by Nicolas Brown and based on the book by Sean B. Carroll. The film explores the discoveries of five pioneering scientists: Bob Paine, Jim Estes, Anthony Sinclair, John Terborgh and Mary E. Power. Popcorn will be provided. For information, call 813-469-9597. … [Read More...] about 08/09/2022 – Native Plant Society

08/09/2022 – Transportation stories

The New River Library, 34043 State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel, will present story times on the topic of transportation on Aug. 9 and Aug. 10. Toddlers can attend at 10:15 a.m., and preschoolers at 11:15 a.m. The 45-minutes sessions will include songs, stories and movement. Register online at PascoLibraries.org. … [Read More...] about 08/09/2022 – Transportation stories

08/11/2022 – Food distribution

Farm Share, the Pasco Sheriff’s Office, Pasco Sheriff Charities, The Gentlemen’s Course, and the Pasco County NAACP will host a free food distribution on Aug. 11 starting at 9 a.m., at the Big Lots parking lot, 4840 Allen Road in Zephyrhills. Food will be handed out rain or shine, on a first-come, first-served drive-through basis, until the items run out. … [Read More...] about 08/11/2022 – Food distribution

More of What's Happening

Follow us on Twitter

The Laker/Lutz News Follow

Your home for weekly news that impacts your life and community. Serving Land O' Lakes, Lutz, New Tampa, Wesley Chapel, Zephyrhills and Dade City.

LakerLutzNews
lakerlutznews The Laker/Lutz News @lakerlutznews ·
8h

Happy #InternationalCatDay!

To celebrate, here's our adorable feline friends who have been featured as our Pet of the Week this year 🐱

Do you have a kitty you'd like to submit for Pet of the Week? Send a photo of them, along with a short blurb, to

3

Reply on Twitter 1556701943510228993 Retweet on Twitter 1556701943510228993 Like on Twitter 1556701943510228993 1 Twitter 1556701943510228993
Retweet on Twitter The Laker/Lutz News Retweeted
whartonbaseball Wharton Baseball @whartonbaseball ·
7 Aug

This guy right here! He keeps grinding ⚾️💙💪🏼 @DrewEhrhard @UT_Baseball @WhartonBoosters https://twitter.com/officialccbl/status/1556010951840866307

Cape League @OfficialCCBL

Drew Ehrhard (@UT_Baseball) absolutely crushes the ball to left for a Home Run!

Top of the 1st:
@CotuitKettleers - 0
@harborhawks - 3

Reply on Twitter 1556235095786373120 Retweet on Twitter 1556235095786373120 3 Like on Twitter 1556235095786373120 6 Twitter 1556235095786373120
Retweet on Twitter The Laker/Lutz News Retweeted
sandeferrussell Russell Sandefer @sandeferrussell ·
6 Aug

I am very excited to announce my commitment to Saint Leo!!

Reply on Twitter 1555777190888972288 Retweet on Twitter 1555777190888972288 11 Like on Twitter 1555777190888972288 54 Twitter 1555777190888972288
Load More

Archives

 

 

Where to pick up The Laker and Lutz News

Copyright © 2022 Community News Publications Inc.

    Doc