The region south of Santa Fe Lake was not settled until after the Seminole War in 1842, although from about 1600 to 1763 it lay on the Spanish mission trail from St. Augustine, during the English period from 1763 to 1784 and the second Spanish period from 1784 to 1821 it was on the overland route to Pensacola, and Florida's first Federal highway, the 1826 Bellamy Road, followed about the same path. Many early landowners came from South Carolina and Georgia, and after the decade of Reconstruction following the Civil War, new families arrived, many to plant orange groves, a few of which had begun in the 1850's. Because the Florida Railroad, completed in 1861 and reorganized after the War, passed west of the region, the Santa Fe Canal Company was chartered in March 1877 to open a waterway from the railroad in Waldo through Lake Alto to Santa Fe Lake. In May 1877 Alexander Goodson, Isaac Weston, and Meredith Granger platted a 30-block town site south of the little bay on the southeast side of Santa Fe Lake, with the old Bellamy Road as the main east-west axis and Centre Street, straddling the Alachua, Putnam, and Clay county border, as the north-south axis. The origin of the name Melrose is shrouded in conflicting legends. The canal linking Waldo to Santa Fe Lake was completed in March 1881, and the stern-wheel steamer F.S. Lewis, built in Waldo, made its maiden voyage in April 1881. Northern visitors came to improve their health and invest in orange groves, building winter cottages or staying in boarding houses and hotels that served winter tourists. The town soon had general stores, a sawmill, cotton gin, livery stables, several churches, and a high school. The Western Railroad reached Melrose from Green Cove Springs in 1890, and the town then thrived as a waterfront resort, lake port, and horticultural and agricultural center. After the freezes of 1894-95 devastated the citrus groves and they never recovered, Melrose became a quiet lakeside retreat for seasonal and weekend residents with a small permanent population. Melrose was incorporated in 1901, gave up its charter in 1917, and many of its nineteenth century homes and buildings still survive; the Melrose Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.