William S. Delk was the largest plantation owner in the area and grew cotton, rice, sugar cane, and corn around Rock Springs. His first home, a log cabin, burned down when he tried to smoke out fleas with fire, and the next house was built on the hill on the south side of the springs. Around 1861, he built a dam across the stream to funnel water to a mill that powered a grist mill, cotton gin, and sawmill, and other farmers paid him part of their crop to grind their corn. A Union supporter, he refused to support the Confederate war effort and was arrested in 1864. He escaped, freed his slaves, and rode to Jacksonville, where he rounded up cattle for sale to the Union Army. After the war, he returned to his plantation and continued farming for twenty years before his death in 1885. When Delk died, his former slave Joseph Robards said that he came there, put Delk in a rough box, and the body was taken to Apopka and buried in a small cemetery there.