Yulee Sugar Mill Ruins Historic State Park

At Homosassa, the ruins of David Levy Yulee’s mid-19th-century plantation mill preserve the remains of a vast forced-labor enterprise. On about 5,000 acres, around 1,000 enslaved African Americans grew sugarcane, citrus, and cotton, while a large steam-driven mill operated from 1851 to 1864 producing sugar, syrup, molasses, and rum. During the Civil War, the plantation supplied sugar products to Confederate soldiers before much of it was destroyed. The surviving stone foundation, well, chimney, iron gears, cane press, and machinery make the site a vivid reminder of Florida’s plantation economy, slavery, and Yulee’s wider political influence.

Homosassa, Florida · United States