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:''For the mining company see: St. Joe Minerals'' The St. Joe Company () is a land development company headquartered in Watersound, Florida. The company had been headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, United States, and is Florida's second largest private landowner, owning about 567,000 acres in the state as of November, 2012.〔http://www.joe.com/〕 ==Beginning== The company was originally founded in 1936 as part of the Alfred I. du Pont Testamentary Trust by du Pont's brother-in-law Edward Ball.〔 Prior to its establishment, the trust had already begun land purchases, making its first one in 1923.〔(St. Joe Company website ), St. Joe Story-page 1〕 During the land booms in South Florida, the company acquired still-cheap land in the Florida Panhandle. In 1933, du Pont's purchased the Apalachicola Northern Railroad. Apalachicola Northern had extended its network from Chattahoochee to Port St. Joe, Florida, in 1910, hoping to take advantage of increased shipping trade through the Panama Canal. However, when the Great Depression hit, business dropped off significantly. Du Pont purchased the struggling railroad and made plans to use the infrastructure to build a paper mill, leading to the foundation of the St. Joe Company. Du Pont drew up elaborate plans for the development of his mill town as "The Model City of the South", but died before it could be completed. His brother-in-law, Ed Ball, took control of the St. Joe Company in 1935 but never acted on the master city plan. Construction began in 1936 and from 1938 to 1996, the company operated a paper mill at Port St. Joe, as St. Joe Paper Company.〔(Humanities & Social Sciences Online: ''Green Empire: The St. Joe Company and the Remaking of Florida's Panhandle'' by Kathryn Ziewitz and June Wiaz-2004 ISBN 978-0-8130-2697-8 )〕 Land purchases continued throughout the 1940s and 1950s, often for "mere dollars an acre"〔 and St. Joe eventually owned more than one million acres (4,000 km²). The company invigorated the local economy following the Depression, employing thousands at its paper mill, but wreaked havoc on the environment. The mill released sulfurous exhaust from sulfate pulping and dioxins, an unintended toxin generated by the chlorine bleaching process used to make white pulp. By the 1950s, the company was drawing 35 million gallons of water a day from the Floridan Aquifer, seriously depleting the water table. St Joe Paper also clear-cut millions of acres of old growth forest, engaging in silviculture to replant the areas with slash pine. The practice decimated the native longleaf pine stands, reducing the species to "2 percent of its former range." Because of this, the United States Department of the Interior designated parts of the region a ''Critically Endangered Ecosystem''.〔 The paper mill was most profitable in the 1960s with products being directly marketed to company-owned box plants. However, an extended period of down time (9-months) due to market conditions in 1996 signaled the beginning of the end for the mill. After nearly sixty years, St. Joe decided to get out of the paper business. The mill was sold in 1996 to Florida Coast Paper for $390 million and was able to operate and produce paper until the decline of the container board market. The mill closed August 16, 1998〔() Pulp & Paper, March, 2000-Florida Coast Paper mill to stay shut〕 and did not reopen. The mill was gone by 2003.〔Angier, David: () Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, May 4, 2003 - With Stench of Paper Mill Gone, Investors Catch Wind of Port St. Joe, Fla.〕 After the dismantling of the paper mill, the St. Joe Company was back in town in 2008 to unveil a $344 million plan for the former mill site that was similar to Alfred du Pont's idealized Southern town – an integrated city with upscale residential districts, entertainment venues, a thriving port and a diverse economy. The company made a deal with the State of Florida to re-route US 98 inland to permit development of beachfront property.〔Nelson, Melissa: ( New airport could put Florida's Forgotten Coast on map ) Atlanta Journal-Constitution, April 28, 2008 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「St. Joe Company」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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