An historical marker at the site reads:
"The Chimney is the only trace of what once was the first major industrial belt on the Gulf Coast, a string of antebellum wood mills and brick factories. The chimney represents the lumber industry of the Florida Panhandle. As the lumber industry prospered in the 1850s, local mills employed 600 people and produced almost 55 million feet of lumber. The bricks in the base of the chimney bear the mark of J. Gonzalez", showing that they were produced at the local brick plant of James Gonzalez. The chimney was part of the steam power plant for the Hyers-Knowles Mill. In March 1862, General Braxton Bragg was evacuating the Confederate forces holding Pensacola when Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin gave the order to "Destroy all machinery private and public, which could be useful to the enemy; especially disable the sawmills in and around the Bay." The machinery from the mills was loaded onto barges which were moved into Escambia Bay. On March 10th a thunderstorm and large waves sank the barges. That same night the Hyer-Knowles Mill was burned, and all that is left is the chimney."
The following additional information is from a U.S. National Register of Historic Places nomination form (visit link) that was submitted in 2009 to list the property on the Register, which doesn't appear to have occurred as of yet:
"Chimney" Park" is a 2. 16-acre city park located in the Bohemia area, south of Gull Point, where Langley Avenue terminates into Scenic Highway. The park is centered on the remnants of a 50-foot common brick chimney, the remnants of a pre-Civil war sawmill. This chimney is one of the few structures in all of Pensacola to antedate the War Between the States and the only one along Escambia Bay and Scenic Highway. The chimney was built in the mid-1850 on land acquired by Henry Hyer in January of 1854 and was part of the steam power plant for the "Hyer-Knowles Factory", a partnership of Hyer and Peter (James) Knowles. The factory, which name can be found on cargo shipping lists of the era, was in operation by 1857. The chimney was on the west end of one of the Gulf Coast's largest sawmills shipping thousand of timber, shingles, and wood railing daily. Schooners from as far away England and Baltimore and as close as Key West made stops at the "Hyer Plant" documents show. The Hyer-Knowles Mill had sophisticated machinery for its time, being able to produce large quantities of shingles and railings and other planned and lathed wood products such as doors and windows. The mill had loading docks on both the old carriage road (now Scenic Highway), which connected to the north-south Spanish Trail and on Escambia Bay to the east. The chimney is now the only trace of what was the first major industrial belt on the Gulf Coast--string antebellum wood mills, paper processing plants and brick factories. In fact, the bricks in the base of the chimney bear the mark "J Gonzalez," showing they were produced at the local brick plant of James Gonzalez north of the site. Records for the years just before and early in the Civil War have not been located and may have been destroyed. Evidence indicates that the mill probably used African-American slave labor.
In March 1862, General Braxton Bragg was evacuating the Confederate forces holding Pensacola to Tennessee. Confederated Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin ordered the destruction of everything that could be of use to the Union forces issuing instructions to "destroy all machinery private and public, which could be useful to the enemy; especially disabling sawmills in and around the Bay, and burn the lumber. He set March io" as the date for the demolition. At 8 p.m. that night Lt. Colonel W.K. Beard and two companies of Florida First Confederate Regiment, boarded the Steamer 'Tom Murray" and headed up the western bank of Escambia Bay to destroy every possible military asset from Pensacola to Milton. Legend says that Hyer-Knowles crews worked the early evening hours of March io" loading the saws, lathes and other wood cutting equipment on barges made just a hundred yards from the chimney in an attempt to avoid the scorched earth policy coming their way. Lt. Colonel Beard reported later in a memo to his superiors wrote, "not only did we destroy the mills and factories, we set fire to the stacks and bales of lumber piled next to the (Escambia) river." Moreover, "a lot of other ship timbers that could be used were cut adrift." The Hyer-Knowles mill (except for the brick chimney) was undoubtedly destroyed that night as it never appears again after that even though "the Hyer family had amassed a substantial fortune in lumber before the Civil War and immediately following the Confederate surrender, they opened a timber and ship brokerage, and were soon providing private banking services.
Confederate memos say that thundershowers and large waves swept Escambia Bay the night of March 10, 1862 and the Hyer-Knowles machinery reportedly among the newest in the South at the time sank to the bottom of the bay where it rests today. Manuel F. Gonzalez rebuilt the mill in 1881 using the same chimney. The mill was probably built in downtown Pensacola's port with markets to the east. The Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad came in 1882. Two-wire telegraph poles with antique glass insulators from that era still remain alongside the tracks. The small community of Bohemia grew up just north of the new sawmill. It was named after the native land of Henry Hyer's mother Julia Kopman Hyer. In 1883, Bohemia Station became a stop on the P&A Railroad line. The community disappeared with the closing of the mill in the 1920s. Efforts to salvage the chimney bricks after the mill's closing were unsuccessful, the bond of the sane, lime and oyster shell "tabby" being so strong that the bricks broke before the mortar. The late 1920s saw the construction of 10 miles of Scenic Highway next to the chimney site, completed in September 1929 at a cost of 1 million dollars, the highway was designed to ensure that tourists traveling west Florida would enter the City of Pensacola passing by this historical site and route's
Scenic bluffs further south. About 1935, a lightning strike dislodged some of the bricks at the top of the chimney and a lightning rod was later installed."