The mill, built out of native limestone, was once a part of a 5,100 acre sugar plantation owned by St. Thomas, West Indies, born David Levy Yulee.

One of the wells in the foreground that supplied the mill with water to produce steam, the steam operated piston, gearing and rollers for crushing the cane, and the chiminey for draft to provide hotter coals to heat the water in the boiler to produce steam to the rightand to keep the temperatures high for the kettle fires.

A closer view of the actual gearing and roller mechanism used to crush the sugar cane. The current 6 acre site was given to the Citrus County Federation of Women's Clubs by Claude Brooks Root in 1923. They in turn donated the parcel with mill remnants to the State of Florida thirty years later.

A photo of the interpretive dislay depicting the crushing of the cane through the rollers.

ANother interpretive mural drawing showing the operation of the steam operated cylinder, which turned the gearing to operate the rollers of the crusher. These horizontal rollers are quite similar to the many sorgum roller/crushers/mills found in the south, except those were vertical, operated by an ox or mule, attached to a long pole, walking around in a circle to turn the crusher rollers.

The door to the boiler used to heat the water to produce the steam for power to operate the crusher and to fuel the various cooking kettles stages for rendering the sugar juice to a syrup.

The interior of the boiler. The space under the boiler in the enclosed limestone furnace was where the fire was kept burning, the sizzling coals pushed further into the cavity toward the chimney stack, which helped to draft the fire so that if would burn hotter. Side ports in the furnace led to the various cooking kettles, so they could also benefit from the draft tecnique.

For a detailed desription of the sugar making process, see the Bulow Sugar Mill page. Yulee, born in 1810, settled with his family on 36,000 acres his father bought in the new Florida territory at Micanopy, north of Ocala. Yulee was active in the first Florida constitutional convention in 1838-39and became Florida's first United States Senator in 1845.

Another view of the sugar cooking kettles at Yulee Mill. Yulee also built the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, completed in 1860, extending from Fernandina north of Jacksonville to Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast.

The outline of the cooling vats room where the sugar crystalized before being taken to the purgory/curing room. Yulee married a Kentucky governor's daughter and moved to his 5,100 acre estate including his house on Tiger Tail Island just west of the sugar mill on the south side of the Homosassa River.

Work started on building the sugar mill in either 1849 or 1851, depending on which source is perused. Sixty-nine workers and 100 slaves built the mill using equipment brought from New York. The mill operated into 1864, suppling the Confererate Army with sugar, syrup, & molasses.

Yulee's mansion on Tiger Tail Island became a bastion of ammunition and supplies for the southern army. The Union navy destroyed the base of supplies, the mansion and it's outbuildings. The sugar mill escaped dammage but never did resume production, probably because of lack of market, after the wars end.