Located just three miles off Interstate 10 in northern Suwannee County, Live Oak is a picturesque town that serves as the county seat. Founded in 1863, the town boasts several historic buildings and an abundance of recreation opportunities in nearby state and local parks.

Located in a region of Timucua Indian culture during prehistoric times and later home to Creek and Seminole Indians who established themselves along the Suwannee River, Live Oak saw its first American settlers beginning in the 1840s. Depopulated by the upheavals of the Second Seminole War, Live Oak was not officially founded until 1863.

In that year the Pensacola and Georgia Railroad established the town of Live Oak at a stopping point for railroad construction workers who took refuge from the heat in the shade of a large Live Oak tree and the waters of a nearby pond. The town soon became a popular stopover for Georgia residents traveling along the Old Salt Road to harvest salt from the Gulf of Mexico. More than railroad workers and road weary travelers fueled Live Oak's economy, however.

The town became a processor of Sea Island Cotton, which thrived on the southeastern coast of the United States, and a producer of lumber and turpentine. When the boll weevil, an insect from the fields of Mexico, devastated cotton crops across the South in the 1920s, Live Oak found refuge in tobacco. Tobacco emerged as Live Oak's most important cash crop, and the town enjoyed a newfound status as the largest tobacco market in Florida.

A writer with the Depression-era Federal Writer's Project, who visited Live Oak in 1939, witnessed how the town came to life during the annual tobacco auctions: "Live Oak, population 2,734, which seems to drowse away more than 11 months of the year, suddenly becomes a hurly-burly city crowded with thousands of visitors during the first two weeks of August."

The tobacco auctions and their associated crowds are long gone. Today, Live Oak is a quaint community of 7,000 residents with buildings that date to the early twentieth century, several of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. These include the County Courthouse, City Hall, the Post Office, the Union Passenger Depot and the neighboring Atlantic Coast Line Freight Depot, home to the Suwannee County Historical Museum.

The area around Live Oak is rich in natural beauty. Suwannee Springs, a sulfur spring renowned for its medicinal benefits, was popular with tourists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Suwannee River State Park, located on the bluffs overlooking the river, contains earthworks built during the Civil War and one of Florida's oldest cemeteries. The Spirit of Suwannee Music Park, also on the river, stages concerts and other events throughout the year. Whether it is history, nature, or music--Live Oak has something for everyone.

This podcast made possible through a grant from the Florida Humanities Council. Script written by Roger Smith. Narrated by Joseph Vincenza.