Just two miles north of Interstate 10, MacClenny is a stone's throw from the St. Marys River, which separates Florida and Georgia. The town is located in a region of ancient Native American traditions and culture, where early contact with Europeans dates back to 1528. Seventeenth century Spanish missionaries spread their faith among the Timucuan inhabitants of the area, but in the early eighteenth century this rich native culture, already impacted by European diseases, fell victim to British and Creek Indian raids that destroyed Spanish mission towns across Florida. Over the next few decades Seminoles moved in, hoping to avoid the ceaseless border disputes between the new British colony of Georgia and Spanish Florida.

From 1840 to 1866, settlers from Georgia established three neighboring villages in the area: Barber's Station, Darbyville, and Jackson's Community. Though small, these hamlets added two saw mills, a turpentine distillery, and social stability to a region torn by four decades of Seminole hostilities and the Civil War. In 1880, Captain Carr B. MacClenny built a sprawling hotel amid the three settlements. By 1883, the villages merged into one, interwoven town named for Captain MacClenny.

What began as a fast-growing community was soon ravaged by a Yellow Fever epidemic in 1888. So devastating was the outbreak that on one occasion the train running through town refused to stop, slowing down only long enough for Red Cross nurses to jump off. It would take decades for the community to rebound.

As the turpentine industry dried up in MacClenny, distillers found a new outlet for their skills. And it wasn't long before the town became known as "The Moonshine capital of the South."

Since the days of Prohibition, MacClenny has become a model citizen of historic preservation and interpretation. The town has gone a step beyond preserving old buildings by constructing Heritage Park Village--25 historically accurate replicas of the county's most famous landmarks from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Travelers reap the benefits of MacClenny's preservation and interpretation efforts, all the while gaining a valuable perspective on Florida's frontier past.

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