Rood 

Sophia Hetzel and Homer Harlow Rood and the first seven of their eleven children, left Wisconsin by train on Christmas Day 1914 for Jupiter. By mail, they had bought one of the 20-acre farm sites in the Plat of Philo Farms, originally located at the north end of Jupiter Farms. Philo Farms was named “Rood” after the Rood Post Office was established there in 1915 with Sophia as the postmistress.

The Roods grew sugar cane and vegetables on their land. The community had a sawmill, a syrup mill, and a two-story hotel owned and managed by Edgar Philo. Children initially walked to a one-room schoolhouse near Cypress Creek, about a mile north of Rood, in what is now Martin County. About 1917 a school bus began taking the children to the school in Jupiter. By then excessive rain in 1915 and no sign of drainage improvements had caused a lot of the families to leave town. Two of the Rood children came down with malaria in the wetness. When Homer found work at the Pennock Plantation in 1919, the family moved into Jupiter.

The Rood post office was discontinued in 1934. The former site of Rood is still shown on National Geodetic Survey maps, and a government survey marker and remains of buildings verify its existence.