Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules, print it, and then click where indicated at the end of the 3-page rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
This land was donated by Levy County, the town of Cedar Key, Randolph Hodges, Henry Hale and the Gainesville Development Company. The park was built after the 1950 hurricane.
Cedar Key was founded in 1842 by Judge Augustus Steele as a resort colony for wealthy plantation owners. Steele served as the first postmaster when the post office was established in 1845. The post office moved from Atsena-Otie to this island, Way Key, on March 29, 1852.
During the 1880s, Cedar Key was the busiest port in Florida. During the 1890s, Cedar Key had a population of about 5000, many times more than at present. The local cedar trees made this town the foremost producer of pencils in the country. A ten-foot tidal surge from a hurricane on October 2, 1896, nearly eliminated the town. It was followed by a fire which destroyed the Bettelini House hotel which had been built in 1878.
Cedar Key was chosen by David Yulee as the Gulf end of his railroad, rather than Tampa, because Cedar Key had a deeper harbor and it was closer to New Orleans. It was also closer to his Tiger Tail Island plantation at the mouth of the Homosassa River. The first train arrived here on June 12, 1860. The railroad was damaged by troops of both sides during the Civil War, and the station was destroyed in 1862. The Florida Railroad Company became the Atlantic, Gulf and West India Transit Company in 1872.
In the 1880s, the depot of the F.T.&P. Railroad Company was located here. The train tracks ran north to the mainland and south to the wharf.
When Henry Plant completed his railroad linking Tampa to the east coast, the rail line coming here from Fernandina lost much of its importantce, and the town declined. In 1903, the railroad merged into the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Railroad activity ended in 1931 and the tracks were removed in 1932.
This was the site of the Fenimore Steam Saw and Planing Mill which was in operation during the 1880s. Later, it was the location of an oyster canning plant. Dr. Dan Andrews and his three brothers bought the defunct plant in 1906 and converted it into a broom factory with cabbage palm used for the bristles. It produced a line of Donax brushes.
Their firm, Standard Manufacturing Company, was founded in 1910 and employed about 75 workers and displayed its brooms at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair "Century of Progress". The plant closed in 1952 as a result of hurricane damage and the drop in the labor force during World War II.
Nearby, Andrews built the Cedar Key Light and Power Company in 1920. It was sold in 1925.
During the 1860s and 1870s, a 200-room hotel located here was the main social center of Cedar Key. R.H. McIlvane operated it during the 1880s.
The proprietor of the hotel located here in the 1880s was A.B. Wheelock. Main (2nd) St. appeared in the 1860s and 1870s as a rough western frontier town, with saloons and gambling establishments. Sidewalks were constructed of wood by the adjacent property owners.
At this site was the law office of E.J. Lutterloh in the 1880s. Originally, the train track and buildings to the east and south of what is now the marina was not land, but instead was construction built up on piers.
This town was not defended by the Confederacy during the Civil War, despite its being the end of the line for the Florida Railroad. When the Union became aware of this, the blockade ship U.S.S. Hatteras brought sailors and marines here on January 15, 1862. They destroyed freight cars, turpentine and cotton stores, and warehouses in the deserted town. About eight ships in the harbor were burned.
The original city dock and fishing pier were rebuilt with W.P.A. funds in 1935, and were destroyed by Hurricane Easy in 1950. They were replaced by a new dock made of cement, which on June 26, 1968, was dedicated to the memory of Peter Baylor, a former Levy County commissioner.
Originally called Depot Key, "Atsena-Otie" comes from Creek Indian words meaning "Cedar Island". Judge Steele in 1843 was the first settler to build a house on this island. During the Second Seminole War, the army occupied the island and maintained a supply depot and hospital there. In September of 1843, Judge Steele bought the deserted military buildings for $227.
U.S. army quartermaster and early settler Mr. Parsons had the first pre-fabricated building in Florida when he cut and assembled the timbers for his home on Way Key, then floated them to Atsena-Otie and reassembled them in one day.
A devastating hurricane hit Atsena-Otie in 1854, and many of the bodies buried there were re-interred on Way Key. The population center of the area shifted from Atsena-Otie to Way Key during Reconstruction in 1865 to 1876.
In the 1880s, Henry Winter ran the Faber Pencil Company Cedar Mill, employing about 100 workers on the northwest shore of the island. Eberhard Faber had purchased a great deal of land near Cedar Key in 1855 so that it could harvest and export cedar logs to Germany and New Jersey. Graphite was imported from Siberia and put into pencils in their factory here, set up in 1865. Eberhard Faber, Sr. died in 1879, the mill nearly exhausted the supply of cedar, and the mills were severely damaged by a storm surge during a hurricane on October 2, 1896. The mill finally closed in 1899.
The U.S. Customs house was located here in the 1880s. Around it were several small buildings and outdoor storage areas.
On stilts here in the Gulf of Mexico, a house was built in 1959 by Philip and Margaret Thomas at the end of a 300-foot boardwalk. At the time, they owned the large Thomas Hotel in Gainesville.
Col. George Walton came to Cedar Key to spend a weekend in the Island Hotel, and instead wound up spending years in this house, which he called the "Shark Tooth School". Walton wrote and published several books, including The Wasted Generation and The Tarnished Shield. It was partially destroyed by Hurricane Elena on Labor Day, 1985.
Many Indian mounds have been discovered and excavated throughout Cedar Key. A large burial mound was located here.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, under Lt. George Meade, built a lighthouse here in 1855, marking the entrance to Cedar Key Harbor. It was later used as a marine biology laboratory by Brooks and Elsie Campbell for the University of Florida.
On Seahorse Key, there is a small Confederate burial ground, including the graves of Joseph Crevasse and his son, Timothy Batiste Crevasse.
To the east of Seahorse Key is Snake Key, a bird sanctuary. The island served as a quarantine station during a cholera epidemic after the Civil War and a yellow fever epidemic shortly after 1900.
This is the oldest remaining home in Cedar Key, built in about 1860 by Parsons and Hall. It is built of the same tabby mixture they used for the Island Hotel. It had no windows or doors when it was first constructed. The exterior stucco was added during the 1920s. It was restored in 1967 by Mr. and Mrs. George Hindall.
It is said, but has not been proven, that Union soldiers captured it during the Civil War and used it as their headquarters for several years. The north and east walls of this structure backed into a hill formed of an Indian midden mound which had to be dug out to accommodate the house.
A house was located here by 1890, and was later moved to the Cedar Key State Museum. In its place was built the Whitman Point Townhouses. In their backyard is what remains of a midden and burial mound which overlooked nearby Goose Cove. It was probably partially excavated in 1918 by C.B. Moore, just before the construction performed by Whitman.
The first Cedar Key High School was built in 1915 for $13,000. It burned down in 1947, and was replaced by another structure completed in 1950. A gymnasium was added in 1954, and a library in 1974. The main school building burned, and was replaced by a new one completed in 2003 with an appearance matching the 1915 school building.
In a tiny plot near the southeast corner of the gymnasium are the graves of teacher Eliza Hearn and her sister and father Capt. Thomas Hearn, one of the first settlers in Alachua County. There were inscribed stone monuments within a metal fence, but over the years what became left are lumps of coquina and pine sticks. Hearn donated the land for the school in exchange for the community's perpetual upkeep of the Hearn family plot.
The land for this cemetery was deeded to a group of trustees on March 26, 1886, by the Florida Town Improvement Company.
This museum is named after the man who invented many of the machines and tools utilized by the Standard Manufacturing Company in their producation of brooms in Cedar Key. Whitman died in 1959 and the museum was opened on February 24, 1962. The land had been donated by Cedar Key Shores, Inc. in 1960.
Nearby in 1938-39, the U.S. government built the George Lewis airstrip, an emergency landing strip 2,500 feet long and 100 feet wide.
This home, built by 1890 on 6th St., was acquired by St. Clair Whitman during the 1920s. Wings were added by him on the east and west ends. He had an interest in Indian artifacts and shells, and established a collection which is now housed in the nearby museum.
Renovation of the home began in July of 1998.
Interred here is Amanda J. Bishop, who died at age 43, and four of her young children. Also here is the grave of the child of J.E. and A.E. Rowland.
This house was built before 1900 and had a kitchen separated from the main structure by an open porch. In the early 1900s, it was acquired by Winter Crevasse, who made several alterations to it.
In the front parking lot of the Lion's Club building is a burial mound about 60 feet wide and ten feet high. The human and other remains date from the Weeden Island period until the late 15th century.
This building was originally the black Mount Pilgrim African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had been founded in 1900.
This church was founded in 1868 when Cedar Key was visited by Bishop John Freeman Young. Services were held once a month in a small building behind the Gulf House, led by Gainesville Holy Trinity pastor Rev. B.P.C. Perry. Later that year and continuing into 1870, Rev. VanLinge held services in a building on 2nd St. near the cedar mills, using part as a chapel and part as his residence.
The Union Church had been built in 1870 with Rev. Aaron Geiger serving as its first pastor. The Episcopalians purchased the building in 1876 at a sheriff's sale to be used as a mission. They refurbished it and it was consecrated as a church on May 15, 1882. It was moved to this corner in 1883. It and the rectory, built in 1885 for $800, burned down in 1916. It had a bell which had previously been a fire alarm in Starke before the Civil War. The heat from the fire partially melted the bell.
After holding services for a time in the Lutterloh store, the second frame church was built in 1925 and the old bell was restored in it ten years later. A 1949 hurricane demolished the church, which was rebuilt of field stone and masonry in 1952 with a Spanish Mission style.
This wood frame house was built in 1878 and was the residence of Edward A. Champlain. Its Victorian Revival style features a bay window and porches. It was later the home of Mrs. Chandler Reynolds, a descendant of Champlain. After being out of the Champlain family from 1886 until 1955, the Reynolds restored it to its original appearance.
Champlain moved here from Charleston, South Carolina, to serve as the freight agent for the railroad after the Civil War.
The Cedar Key Town Company sold this land in 1892 to the trustees, W.H. Anderson, Charles G. McCormick and Ben Coachman. They had the church built here, and it was used until 1916, when it was sold for use as a residence.
The Church of Jesus Christ was established as the Holiness Church in 1853. Its sanctuary was built here in 1940, and was later converted to a woodworking shop.
This area is at the center of a large mound which extends from E to G Sts. Some midden shells may be found in the lawns of the residents.
This mound was reported by S.T. Walker, an archaeologist from Clearwater who came here in 1883. He dug a 12-foot section and found pottery at different levels. In the bottom three feet, the pottery was thick and coarse, tempered with gravel or coarse sand. The next four feet has thinner pottery with incising, with rims turned outward. There was also some check-stamped pottery found there.
The next two feet contained very little pottery, and in the top three feet the pottery found had handles and ears. It was decorated with zigzag lines, dots and curves, and some were painted.
Walker estimated that the pottery represent four cultural periods from about 200 B.C. until 1200 A.D. The sand dune beneath it was formed about a million years ago.
This wood frame cottage was built before 1884 by W.H. Hale, Sr., one of the partners in the Parsons and Hale Store. He later served as the mayor of Cedar Key. A.W. Johnson bought the house in 1896.
It has a hip roof, a recessed porch with paired bracketed columns, and turned balusters. Its style is Victorian, with Italianate elements.
This home was built before 1884 by early settler L.B. Parsons. It is constructed of tabby concrete and is an example of a Greek Revival style townhouse.
This house was constructed in the 1890s with a two-story hall and parlor plan. A later owner, finding that the original heart pine timbers were too hard to allow nails to be used in them, replaced some with softer wood.
This is a three-bay Classical Revival style cottage built before 1900 for Langdon Parsons. In 1918, it was purchased by Henry and Mable Gibson, who moved the kitchen so it would attach right to the house. It was previously connected by an open walkway.
The Baptists built this structure in 1891 and used it until they moved into the present sanctuary on 2nd St. The property was originally acquired on behalf of the congregation by J.S. Bodiford, R.G.H. Thomas and R.T. Walker.
Since 1923, the building has been used as a residence. Later modifications have included the covering of the door facing 4th St.
This house was built prior to 1884 with a modified steamboat design, with the second-floor room resembling the wheelhouse. The builder is unknown, and was occupied by R.S. Claywell in 1900.
This two-story wood frame structure was built in about 1880. This building was used for classes until 1915, when a brick school was built at another site. In 1936, this structure was sold to Bud Young to be used as a private home. It features verandas on the north and east sides.
The Methodists organized in 1855. This L-shaped church building was erected in 1889 with a Gothic Revival style. The 1896 hurricane, which flooded the island by as much as eight feet, did substantial damage. It was repaired and expanded, and in 1950 it was renovated and redecorated.
The 1950 hurricane damaged it and pushed it off its foundation.
Samuel Reddick built this house in 1874, and sold it in 1909 to J. McCumber. It has been altered and sold several times.
The Florida Town Improvement Company built this as a rental property in the 1880s. Its style is Classical Revival, with three bays. The company sold it in 1909 to Hamp King, and the Stephens family acquired it in the 1940s.
The Greystone Apartments were located at this corner in the 1910s. There, a primary school was operated in 1914.
The present church building was built in about 1946.
This house was built of native yellow pine in 1880 by the Eagle Pencil Company for its employees and guests. It was later owned by a sister of David Yulee, Margaret Reed, who ran a boarding house here.
Boaz C. Wadley bought it in 1919, and it remained in his family until 1991. It was later restored as the Cedar Key Bed & Breakfast.
Near here was one of the two major lumber mills on Cedar Key. It was totally destroyed during the hurricane on October 2, 1896.
A home on this corner was built of tabby concrete in 1889. It was first owned by the Florida Railroad Company, then by Dr. Turner, and then by the Boothby family. The deep well on this lot provided water for the city hall and the ice house.
The Boothbys built the Carriage House on the same lot as a garage. It was constructed from wooden beams which had been part of the old Yulee railroad sheds which were abandoned in 1933.
This house was built in about 1888 with a two-story side hall plan common before 1900. Originally, the porches on both levels were open.
Ira Gore owned and edited the local newspaper, the Florida State Journal, beginning in the 1870s.
This was built by the Florida Town Company between 1884 and 1890, and a similar one stood next door to the west. Both were bought by S.T. White and were operated as a rooming house. They were later acquired by C.C. Whidden and run as the White House Hotel. The west building was destroyed by the 1890 hurricane.
Beneath the house is the highest Indian shell midden in Cedar Key. The structure was bought in 1972 by Robert and Joy Witman and has been restored to its 1900 appearance.
This congregation organized in 1870. James Taylor built a wooden church for it in 1923, replacing a home located at the corner of 4th and E Sts. This church was designed with a Classical Revival style with a gable roof and four square columns supporting the gable over the front door.
This Victorian style house was built before 1880 by F.E. Hale, the business partner of John Parsons.
The Florida Town Improvement Company built this structure during the late 1880s as a rental house. It was purchased in 1904 by Yulee Kirchhain. It used a popular two-story side hall plan, and formerly had porches on both the first and second floor. The porches feature decorative woodwork.
Boaz Wadley bought this house in 1912 from the Florida Town Improvement Company, which had owned it since 1880. It was originally an L-shaped parlor house, and porches and rooms were added in the 1920s.
In 1917, the Wadleys sold the house to John Allen, and Harry Hughes owned it during the 1930s. This was the location of the town's first telephone exchange.
This was built in about 1871 as the home of John B. Lutterloh, the Cedar Key agent for the Florida Railroad. He also served as an alderman and the mayor. This building formerly had a separate kitchen in the back, and was later used as a restaurant, the home of the Woman's Club, an army depot, the public library, a service station, and a store.
A later owner was Gertrude Teas, who lived upstairs in the 1960s and had a ceramic shop on the first floor. She donated the building in 1978 to the Cedar Key Historical Society, which established the Cedar Key Historical Society Museum.
Former mayor F.E. Hale built this structure in 1880 to be used as a clothing and grocery store. Later, I.O. Andrews & Co. sold ladies' and gents' furnishing goods. Other uses included a real estate office, movie house, bar, and doctor's office, with apartments upstairs. More recently, it was the home of "The Heron" gourmet restaurant, and then TS Seafood.
When this structure was built in 1910 by H.B. Rogers and Boaz Wadley, the first floor was a general merchandise store and the Masons met in the hall upstairs. It has also been the home of the Fowler-Wood Land Company, a barber shop, a bookstore and a grocery store. Later, it was the Country Store and the Antique Attic.
The wood frame building has a hip roof, bracketed eaves, a recessed door on the corner, and display windows facing the street on the first floor.
This building was erected in about 1884, and was occupied by W.P. Bickel. In this building, he produced Daugerrotype and tintype portraits. This structure has also housed a restaurant, home, pharmacy, barber shop, and a beauty salon. In June of 1986, it was restored for The Gallery At Cedar Key, and later was a consignment shop.
Frank Wadley was the operator of a grocery store in this wooden building in 1884. Ten years later, it was sold to the Cedar Key Town Company. Frank Wadley bought it in 1911 and operated a grocery and shoe repair shop.
This has also been a restaurant, a bar and a religious meeting place. Sam and Polly Pillsbury remodeled it in 1975 to be a home and an art studio for Pillsbury Arts.
This wooden building was moved here from the south side of the street in 1918, with the building turned around so that what faces 2nd St. was originally the rear. It is one of the few wood frame buildings remaining in Cedar Key from that era. Later tenants include Proctor Real Estate and the Cedar Key Canvas Company. This building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
In the 1880s, this was the site of C.B. Rogers & Co. Its store dealt in general merchandise, wholesale and retail.
This brick building was erected in 1912 as the only Neo-Classical style building in downtown Cedar Key. The bank was organized by Dr. Dan Andrews, Dr. James Turner and W.R. Hodges. The front door used to be on the south wall, facing onto 2nd St.
This tabby cement structure was erected in 1875 for Edward J. Lutterloh, and when the town council that year proposed to construct a jail, market place and swine pen in the middle of the street in front of it, Lutterloh went to court to stop them. The Florida Supreme Court prevented the town from going through with its plans.
This building has also housed a general merchandise store, grocery stores and a real estate office.
In the 1880s, a hotel located here was operated by O. Bettelini.
Nicholas Schlemmer constructed this brick building in 1880 as a bakery and grocery, with an apartment upstairs. It was connected by an overhead walkway across 2nd St. to the Schlemmer House Hotel, a large and popular lodging during the 1860s and 1870s. It was destroyed during he 1896 hurricane and fire.
This is the oldest surviving brick building in Cedar Key.
Fraser Thomas, who married Lillie Schlemmer, in the 1920s moved to this site a wooden building which had housed the Schlemmer Bakery ovens. Porches were added to convert it into a residence.
The building became the city hall in 1963, and the Schlemmer Rooming House next door became the home of the fire department.
In 2003-04, the original Schlemmer Bakery oven building was replaced with a new one.
This was built in 1884 for use as the W.K. Zewadski General Merchandise Store. During the 1920s, it was a drug store, and in the 1950s it became the home of Hale Hardware.
Tabby concrete was used to construct this building in about 1881 for N. Woodredge. It has been used as the post office, a drug store, a hardware store, a bar and a barber shop.
This building was constructed in about 1880 of tabby concrete for sisters Ovilla and E.C. Barnes. J.S. Bodiford had his drug store downstairs and a residence upstairs. In later years, it has been used as a video store.
This was built in 1849 as the Parson and Hale general store when the railroad reached Cedar Key. Included in the store was the customs house and the post office. Just after the Civil War, rooms upstairs were rented to guests and the second floor veranda was added. The local economy declined with the decline of the cedar industry, and soon after Frank Hale's death in 1910 the store closed.
Simon Feinberg bought it in 1915 and renovated it, naming it the Bay Hotel. In 1919, he discovered a whiskey still in the attic and reported it to his manager, as it violated the law. The manager agreed to remove it, but also insisted that Feinberg stay for lunch. Feinberg did, and immediately after eating fell into a deep sleep from which he never awoke.
It was then operated solely as a hotel by the Territe family, and then in 1925 it was acquired by Mr. Fowler, who renamed it "Fowlerwood". Cedar Key Savings Bank foreclosed on it during the Depression. During the late 1940s, it was acquired by L.C. and Bessie Gibbs, who improved both the condition and reputation of the hotel.
This building has a Masonry Vernacular style with some Jamaican influence, with parapet walls and a flat roof, under a sheet metal hip roof (which blew off during Hurricane Easy in 1950). The foundation and walls are made from a combination of oyster shells, crushed oyster shell lime, sand and water, all poured into thick wooden frames. The original wood floors, French doors and mural walls have been maintained.
One of the hotel rooms was named The Richard Boone Room for a frequent visitor who starred in TV's "Have Gun - Will Travel".
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
T.L. Carter ran a hotel here in the 1880s.
This was built in 1910 as the house of fish exporter W.R. Hodges, duplicating the plan of his house in Inglis. It has a Victorian Revival style with two gables facing the street, a shed roof, a gable over the front door, bracketed porch columns, and verge boards in the gables. The heavy wooden timbers (12 x 12 and 14 x 14 inches) came from the former Faber sawmill on Atsena-Otie.
The Cedar Keys in the Civil War and Reconstruction 1861-1876, by Charles C. Fishburne, Jr. (Sea Hawk Publications 1982)
The Cedar Keys in the 19th Century, by Charles Carroll Fishburne, Jr. (Sea Hawk Publications 1993)
Christ Episcopal Church 1868-1968, by Ida L. Hale (The Dixie County Advocate Press 1968)
Florida Back Roads, by Bob Howard (Sentinel Communications Company 1991)
Florida Bed & Breakfast Guide, by Valerie C. Bondy (Queen of Hearts Publications 1995)
Florida From Secession to Space Age, by Merlin G. Cox and J.E. Dovell (Great Outdoors Publishing Co. 1974)
Florida Jewish Heritage Trail, by Rachel B. Heimovics and Marcia Zerivitz (Florida Department of State 2000)
Florida Off the Beaten Path, by Diana and Bill Gleasner (The Globe Pequot Press 1993)
Florida: The Long Frontier, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas (Harper & Row 1967)
Florida's History Through Its Places: Properties in the National Register of Historic Places, by Morton D. Winsberg (Florida State University 1988)
Guide to Florida's Historic Architecture, (University of Florida Press 1989)
Guide to the Small and Historic Lodgings of Florida, by Herbert L. Hiller (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1991)
Historic Old Cedar Key: A Walking Tour, (Cedar Key Historical Society 1987)
Historical Sketch of Cedar Key in Levy County, Florida, by Mary L. Snodgrass Clarke (1943)
Indian Mounds You Can Visit, by I. Max Perry (Great Outdoors Publishing Company 1993)
"Off the Beaten Path": The History of Cedar Key, Florida 1843-1990, by Jesse Walter Dees, Jr. and Vivian Flannery Dees (Rife Publishing 1990)
Romantic and Historic Levy County, by Ruth Verrill (Storter Printing Company 1976)