Place:Orange Park, Clay, Florida, United States

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Orange Park is a town in Clay County, Florida, United States. A suburb of Jacksonville, the population was 8,412 at the 2010 census. The name "Orange Park" is additionally applied to a wider area of northern Clay County outside the town limits, covering such communities as Fleming Island, Lakeside, Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace and Oakleaf Plantation.

The town's name reflects the hope of its founders for a fruit-growing industry, but their crops were destroyed in the Great Freeze of 1894–1895. Despite recovery elsewhere, the crops never came back to Orange Park.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Orange Park in the late 18th century was known simply as Laurel Grove. The name Laurel Grove comes from Sarah and William Pengree who received a land grant from the Spanish governor. Laurel Grove was sold to Zephaniah Kingsley of the Kingsley Plantation upon William's death. Zephaniah developed Laurel Grove into a model farming plantation for over 10 years. In 1813 General Matthews invaded East Florida triggering the Patriots Rebellion. After Mathews left East Florida Zephaniah's wife Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley burned down Laurel Grove to keep it out of Patriots hands.

The Town of Orange Park was founded in 1877 by the Florida Winter Home and Improvement Company. Following the Civil War, the company purchased several thousand acres of the McIntosh plantation at Laurel Grove, for the purpose of creating a southern retreat and small farming community. The property was subdivided into building lots and small farm tracts where the present street system was laid out including Kingsley Avenue and Plainfield Avenue. The town was incorporated in 1879 by a special act of the Florida Legislature. In January 1880 Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan visited Orange Park. A large hotel was constructed at Kingsley Avenue along with a 1,200-foot pier.^[1] In 1895 the fruit-growing industry was destroyed in the Great Freeze of 1895.

In 1930 Robert Yerkes, with the support of Yale University, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation, established a research station in Orange Park for studying primate biology and behavior. Originally called the Yale Laboratories for Primate Biology, it was renamed the Yerkes Laboratory of Primate Biology after Yerkes retired in 1941. In 1956 ownership of the laboratory was transferred to Emory University. The laboratory became the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and was moved to the Emory University campus in Georgia in 1965.

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