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| History of Millville 
The first European settlers came to the St Andrews Bay area during the Spanish period. They may have been floaters from Georgia backwoods who were loyalist sympathizers during the Revolution during the Spanish period after 1781. A small Indian village or the plantation of a settler may have stood in the area that is now Panama City.
During the 1840's and 1850's, many planters prospered in the panhandle of Northwest Florida, and some constructed summer homes on St Andrew Bay. Mail carriers delivered weekly mail by horseback from Marianna, but the St. Andrew's Bay post office did not open officially until October 23, 1845. In 1845, Panama City listed a population that numbered more than 1,200. A three-year drought in the St. Andrew Bay area caused a large portion of the population to turn to salt making. Salt became one of the Confederacy's greatest needs due to the blockade. By 1862, St. Andrew Bay served as one of the most important salt-making areas in Florida.
While developers eyed St Andrew in the 1880s, several men took up homesteads on the land that would become Panama City. C. J. Demorest and G. W. Jenks surveyed some of this property and platted it as the Town of Harrison on September 20,1663. This survey showed Harrison Avenue where it runs today. The Harrison post office opened on the waterfront on January 14, 1889. The financial panic of 1892 halted any growth and any interest in future land sales. Harrison remained a small trading post where a total of four families resided year round. These original owners retained rights to most of the land until the early 1900's.  The area's reawakening began in Millville when Henry Bovis, a French Canadian with lumber interests in Bagdad, Florida, surveyed the bay and the profitable natural resource of the forest that surrounded the area. Bovis constructed a mill at the head of Watson Bayou and called it the American lumber Co. He also constructed a large home on the bay at the end of College Ave. Those seeking work flocked to the mill town. The Millville post office opened on September 20, 1899. In 1904, service at the Harrison post office was discontinued and moved to Millville. That same year Henry Bovis died. He is now buried next to his wife in the Millville Cemetery. The mill was bought out and the name changed to the German-American Lumber Company. The mill had a serious fire in 1907, was rebuilt at a new site west of Sherman Avenue and south of Third Street. At the time docks, port, and warehouse facilities were built to handle ocean-going ships. The port became one of the busiest in the region. It was reported in a local paper that at one time there were 21 ships lined up to be serviced at the Millville docks.
 In 1904 people marveled at the possibilities the St. Andrews area held as a shipping port and they began to purchase large tracts of land. The region began to be linked directly by railroad to areas in Georgia and Alabama and regions north. Florida legislators created Bay County on April 24, 1913 and Panama City became the county seat in 1914. Millville was also incorporated in 1913 to make it the third municipality in the county. The towns of Millville, St. Andrew, and Panama City were consolidated and became part of greater Panama City on March 12, 1926. Several parks were provided for the citizens including Harris Park, which is located at Center Lumber Avenue, and Eighth Street. It is on 2 1/2 acres and includes
a nature trail and clubhouse with multi-purpose meeting room.
In 1918 the Panama City Chamber Of Commerce appointed a committee to lobby for a shipyard in Millville. As a result there was a contract signed with the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Corporation to construct eight barges at the Millville site. The ship building facility employed 400 people and was located adjacent to the mill at the end of Sherman Avenue. Gulf Shipbuilding Company also built a second shipyard on Watson Bayou.
A second major fire reoccurred in Millville on March 22, 1931 when another fire rebroke out on the saw premises. The fire re consumed the mill, twenty homes and several vehicles. The Alco Theatre was destroyed along with several other businesses on Third Street. The cutting of the forest in Panama City was done without reforestation, which depleted the supply of lumber for Bay County. The operations at the mill slowed dramatically. Lumber milling operations evolved into paper manufacturing. The waterfront industrial uses remained but took on a different form, which is more marina and boat manufacturing related. Because town history and economic cycles add their influence on land uses we continue to have these development patterns today, which are impeding the communities ability to progress for a variety of reasons. | |
| Panama City Community Redevelopment Agency Millville CRA Attn: Mary Sue Boles, Program Manager 407 Maple Avenue Panama City, FL 32401 | |
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