A State Historical Marker for David Yulee and Cotton Wood Plantation is located about one mile southwest of the location of Yulee's plantation. David Levy Yulee was the developer of the Florida Railroad and was serving as United States Senator when Florida seceded from the Union. He resigned his Senate seat and returned to Florida during the Civil War to devote time to his plantations and his railroad. After the destruction of his Margarita Plantation at Homosassa by Union troops in 1864, Yulee and his family spent the remainder of the war at his Cotton Wood Plantation.

Upon the fall of the Confederacy, the baggage train of President Jefferson Davis, including official documents and the slim remnants of the Confederate treasury, reached Cotton Wood Plantation in May 1865. Davis had been captured in Georgia earlier that month and his baggage train contents were kept hidden at Cotton Wood Plantation until they were sent to the stationmaster at Waldo, where they were seized by Union troops in June 1865. Yulee's Cotton Wood Plantation home was destroyed in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Image courtesy Historic Preservation Alachua County Walking Tour.

Information Provided by Florida Department of State.