History

The history of Blue Spring State Park began many years ago with Native Americans. Timucuan Indians inhabited the Blue Spring area for centuries. One of their staple food items was snails, collected from sandbars. The Seminole Wars of the 1800’s removed most of the remaining Indians. They left behind cultural artifacts including clay effigies, shell tools, pottery, and both animal and human bone fragments. These artifacts were found in huge mounds and mixed in with millions of shells.

In 1766, a botanist named John Bartram from colonial Pennslyvania visited and wrote the first account of the natural scenery he encountered at the spring. The acreage around the spring was covered with 100-year-old live oaks, wild olive trees, tall pines, cypress, and cabbage palms.

Louis Thursby and his wife purchased the land around Blue Spring in 1856. They were the first white settlers to make a permanent home at the spring. The Thursbys and other settlers received their mail and supplies via the steamboats that landed at Enterprise on Lake Monroe.

The Thursbys carved out a living by growing oranges, corn, beans, Irish and sweet potatoes and by raising hogs and cattle. The spring water was used for drinking, but not from the main boil, as it was too sulphurous. The large house they built on top of the Indian shell mound remains to this day.

With more settlers came more commerce, and a wharf was built at Blue Spring. It became a freight depot and passenger station for Orange City. Not far from the spring, the Florida East Coast Railway was constructed . The Thursbys and other local growers used these resources to export their oranges and produce. In 1895, a hard freeze killed off the citrus trees, and many growers moved farther south to warmer weather. The Thursbys switched to the tourism trade and offered visitors opportunities to fish and hunt.

Jacques Cousteau visited the spring in 1970 and counted 11 manatees. In 1972, the Florida Park Service acquired Blue Spring and began the work of preserving the park’s natural and cultural resources. Today, Blue Spring is comprised of more than 2,600 acres. It has become a manatee refuge and is a winter home to West Indian manatees. The spring pumps out more than 100 million gallons of water per day and is visited by thousands of tourists each year.