Dunnellon : Boomtown of the 1890s

By MIKE WALKER

My friend Jason and I thought we were going to Lebanon. Not the nation in the Middle East, but the spot on the map in western Levy County. I had heard about a park built at Lebanon Station and it sounded like an interesting place to go and shoot some photos, but alas, when we arrived at the crossroads which forms all that there is of Lebanon Station today, I couldn't find the park. Of course, we were driving at a pretty good clip, too: that may have had something to do with it. Instead, we continued south to Inglis and then eastward to Dunnellon. Lebanon Station, that will have to be some other time. But we'll revisit it, sure enough.

Bridges crossing the Rainbow River

Dunnellon is an interesting town, with scattered homes and businesses on the banks of the Rainbow River and a tightly-knit center of town which is now a National Register Historic District under the title of the "Dunnellon Boomtown Historic District". Why "boomtown"? Because, apparently, Dunnellon was founded a bit late in the game-around 1887-but rich phosphate desposits were discovered in 1889 and for a period thereafter the town grew in leaps and bounds. The Rainbow River, also known as the Blue Run, was used to transport the phosphate from quarry locations onwards for sale. Nowadays, Dunnellon is a small sleepy town that does a good tourism business with those interested in rural Florida and the Rainbow River which offers fishing and boating in the midst of pristine nature. Despite the Wal-Mart supercenter and other typical chain stores on the edge of Dunnellon, you feel a little like you've been transported back in time in this town.

Jason and I left his car at the community park where a boat launch is set down by the river and, on this Sunday, found a good number of people out enjoying their boats-either launching them out or bringing them back in to cart away on an awaiting trailer. Other folks were perched on dry land nearby fishing and chatting with each other, either at the park itself or a small motel-slash-

Frozen in time, this motel was left unfinished in the midst of construction.

outfitter on the other side of the highway bridge. Across from this motel stood what appeared to be another motel left unfinished in the midst of construction: the block walls and plumbing were in place but the roof had not been added to the second floor and the whole property was for sale. Just what dire tale left this project unfinished and abandoned was impossible to discern but it made for a poetic piece of industrial architecture in contrast to the natural surroundings. Further afield from this motel, teenage kids raced dirtbikes up and down a dusty road in the harsh afternoon sun: Florida's spring was coming in and fast, no doubt there. Already warm, the water looked inviting though it was probably too cool in actuality for swimming.

An elderly African-American man rode slowly by on his bike, turning and heading up a small dirt path that cut through a small span of brush and, we supposed, back to home. He carried a tackle box tied to the back of his bike and a long fishing pole stuck out of his backpack. Fishing clearly was a prime past-time here. Over at the functioning motel, the dock and outfiitter's buildings, while in good repair, looked as if they had changed little in perhaps fifty years. Again, the feeling 

Railroad bridge crosses the river

here was timeless and peaceful with only the hum of traffic on the highway bridge adding any distracting noise. A train bridge crossed the Rainbow River a short piece down from the highway bridge. Straight out of a postcard, with a rusted-out sign that proclaimed "property passing" where the railway right-of-way began for the bridge and live oaks covered with Spanish moss: this could have been 1889 for all I could imagine.

The scene made me think of the Chicago-born historian and writer Gloria Jahoda who moved to Florida with her college professor husband when he took a position at FSU; Jahoda who herself had been a college instructor up north, had little in Florida to busy her life with aside from being a housewide and thus, over time, came to record the oral histories of folks like turpentine workers, fishermen, and backwoods preachers in north-central Florida. Jahoda's book The Other Florida remains a masterpiece of historical narrative and a rare look at the bridge between the old way things were done in Florida and the emerging modern age of the 1960s when Jahoda started collecting her stories. Jahoda encountered plenty of places like this scene on Rainbow River-though she didn't write about Dunnellon itself-and recognized the value of rural Florida. As we snapped pictures with our digital cameras and walked around the area surrounding the river, I thought about irony of using the latest electronic technology to document many things that one could have found more or less the same fifty or more years ago. Much of the charm of Dunnellon though isn't just its timeless sense of natural beauty, but that nothing has been dolled up and despite the historic district, there is no feeling of a civic effort to make this town into a tourist draw. What Dunnellon is and what it offers it provides on its own honest merits.

Going downtown, you get a sense-especially in the quite of a Sunday-of a place that has parties but not bars; where high school sports are very important; where homes that have been converted into dentists' offices and computer sales and repair stores, yet have kept their veracity of design and vernacular charm. American flags fly from short poles here and there and statues of chipmunks and birds dot yard gardens and you could just imagine the bunting and fireworks that would come out around the Fourth of July. When we drove back to Gainesville later via U.S. Route 41, we did in fact pass a couple bars-and they were open too!-with neon beer signs and motorcycles and Ford pickup trucks in their dirt lots outside. Not much else is around Dunnellon: while in Marion County, Dunnellon is in fact at the westernmost side of this large county and seems even far from Ocala and the rest of the county. Jason, who is from Ocala himself, remarked that Dunnellon reminded him of a cross between old downtown Ocala and the woods found to the east in the Ocala National Forest. That pretty much summed it up: Dunnellon was a decent-sized community thrust apparently into the middle of a beautiful, lazy, river's wilderness. It's not totally unique despite its beauty, though: Branford to the north on the banks of the Suwannee River has a natural spring with a small city park built around it and a highway bridge crossing over to the next county while White Springs in Hamilton County near the Georgia boarder provides the same sense of time standing still and the Victorian homes with their neat and proud paintjobs and green lawns.

 

What we get here in Dunnellon is how things have evolved, just as Miami evolved from Julia Tuttle's orange groves into the huge metro expanse and cultural epicenter it is today. Except Dunnellon's evolution just has been slower and a bit more direct, uncomplicated, and tied to that certain past of phosphate and flowing river. The architecture outside of the historic district falls into either one of two groups: vernacular north Florida Cracker buildings or the corporate logic of the likes of Wal-Mart and KFC. Homes and the small motel bustle with the sounds of window-unit air conditioners and the slam of a screen door now and then, every tin roof sports a bit of rust here and there-some certainly moreso than others-and neon signs promote everything from the expected (beer) to less expected (physical therapy).

Dunnellon reminded me that Floridian tourism, before the days of Disney and way before International Drive turned Orlando into something of a cross between Vegas and a Hillary Duff video, was about enjoying the balmy climate of our fair state and its natural wonders. Dunnellon is also one of those place in Florida that reminds you how our rivers and lakes are a leitmotif of the entire state, a part of our lives whether we realize them as such or not. In Dunnellon, you just can't help but realize it. The phosphate business lives on in other parts of the state even still-unlike the turpentine and associated naval stores business, phosphate mining never really went away. In Hamilton County, PCS Phosphate operates a quarry operation the size of a small African nation, in example. Between the tall pines, wide live oaks, and the more minor herbaceous perennials found all about the banks of the Rainbow River you get a sense of Florida that many of us don't encounter every day yet that formulates the basis of most everything we are north of Orlando and southeast of Jacksonville.

MIKE WALKER is a journalist based out of Gainesvile, Florida. He is also an avid mountain biker and skateboarder. Slowly, he is starting work on a book about the writer and historian, Gloria Jahoda. All photos for this article by the author. Mike may be contacted at: cloudrace@prontomail.com