A short history of Macclenny
Macclenny was first called Darbyville because most of the land of this area was owned by the Darby family. Carr Bowers McClenny married into the Darby family, and then bought most of this land in the late 19th century, intending to harvest it for timber.
The town was later renamed McClenny after Carr Bowers McClenny. He established lumber-related businesses, including wood harvesting, sawmills to process it, turpentine, and land. The town name McClenny was changed to the current name of The City of Macclenny because the post office department had a rule against using capital letters in the middle of a name. The first post office in Macclenny was established in 1890.
There were settlers in Macclenny as early as 1829, but it was not until after the Civil War that more people began to settle there. In 1888, most of the town residents were killed in a yellow fever epidemic. The population was 334 in 1890, and the town gradually recovered.
Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Macclenny, Florida, revision 1374534909 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.