MELROSE – For the entire decade of the 1880s, early settlers waited for the railroad line from Green Cove Springs to ooze its way west to them. They needed convenient transportation of passengers and products to and from the St. Johns River to grow.

The waiting began in Feb of 1881, when Ozias Buddington and Raphael Canova, established businessmen in Middleburg and Green Cove Springs, commenced construction of the Green Cove Springs to Melrose Railroad. It was going to be a long wait.

Material delivery delays were common. One shipment of several tons of steel was delivered to the wrong Green Cove Springs pier and had to ride the trolley from one end of town to the other. Somewhere in the woods near Belmore, crews struck quicksand and helplessly watched as the trembling earth sucked rails and fill into the ground. Only quick thinking prevented the loss of a mule team.

In Melrose, John McRae got tired of waiting in 1888 and commenced gathering investors to build the Santa Fe Hotel. He purchased the property at the corner of Park and Center Streets years before in anticipation of its arrival back when the train track was barely out of the Green Cove Springs city limits.

In 1889, the hotel and the railway were nearing completion. It took “Mr. Budington’s Railroad”, as it was christened by locals, more than nine years to reach its destination because of disasters, delays and political hold-ups. It took McRae less than a year to erect, furnish, equip and staff his grand hotel.

In addition to the 55 posh-appointed rooms sure to impress all the touring swells, the Santa Fe Hotel offered other enticements. A livery stable was connected to the establishment and offered transportation to and from the train station, steamboats and other points of interest.

Boats, guns fishing tackle and skilled guides were available to the sportsman. Broad views of Lake Santa Fe could be enjoyed from most rooms and the large dining room and formal parlor.

The grand opening, in January of 1890, was a week-end occasion with a huge crowd combining local and state officials and high-rollers, townsfolk and farmers and cattlemen from nearby communities. A reporter from the Florida Times Union even made an appearance but he allegedly overindulged in the punch provided outside at the wagon of a local shiner and spent much of his time in a downstairs gentlemen’s lounge.

The rest of those attending maintained a more restrained demeanor and spent the early afternoon gathered in spacious parlors and hallways then gathered at the lakeside for speeches and boat-rides.

After a liberal spread in the hotel dining room, porters steered guests out to chat in the generous corridors while they hastily dispatched the tables to storage, lined the chairs along the walls and installed decorations. The crowd waited all a twitter until the doors were opened and a five piece band cranked up with a grand march then, two by two, couples re-entered the transformed dining room.

Dancing continued up into the wee hours of the morning and was interrupted only briefly for guests to enjoy buffets set up in the smaller parlors and at mid-night for the spectacular fireworks display over the lake.

Sadly, a mere four months after pulling off this spectacular event, John McRae contracted typhoid fever and, at age 45, died.

In 1894, the name of the hotel was changed to the Melrose Inn. Around the early 1900’s times were hard because fickle tourists and winter residents began looking for new places to go to see and be seen, several hard freezes crippled the citrus industry in north Florida and yellow fever had a way of showing up every now and then. The hotel closed.

Briefly it became home to a military school then, in 1911, the grand hotel overlooking Santa Fe Lake in Melrose burned to the ground. It will always be remembered as the site of one of the best parties – ever.