Marion County is located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 375,908. Its county seat is Ocala.
Alachua County is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus opened with 106 students.
Ocala is a city in and the county seat of Marion County within the northern region of Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 63,591, making it the 54th most populated city in Florida.
Silver Springs is an CDP in Marion County, Florida, United States. It is the site of Silver Springs, a group of artesian springs and a historic tourist attraction that is now part of Silver Springs State Park. The community is part of the Ocala metropolitan area.
The Silver Springs, Ocala and Gulf Railroad was a railroad running in northern Central Florida. Despite its name, it never directly served Silver Springs but instead ran from Ocala west to Dunnellon and to the Gulf of Mexico at Homosassa. It also had a track that served Inverness from Dunnellon.
The Ocala Street and Suburban Railroad Company was incorporated on July 21, 1888 under the general incorporation laws of Florida. They were granted the exclusive right to operate a street railroad in Ocala, Florida by a town ordinance passed September 18, 1889.
The South Florida Railroad was a railroad from Sanford, Florida, to Tampa, Florida, becoming part of the Plant System in 1893 and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902. It served as the southernmost segment of the Atlantic Coast Line's main line. The line remains in service today and is now part of the Central Florida Rail Corridor in the Orlando metro area. The rest of the line remains under the ownership of CSX Transportation as part of their A Line.
The Winter Park Company was incorporated by Florida state law chapter 3669, approved February 6, 1885. It was owned by Loring A. Chase, Olive E. Chapman and J. F. Welborne of Winter Park, Florida, and Orrison S. Marden and Frank G. Webster of Boston, Massachusetts. Among its powers were laying out roads on its property, buying and building hotels, and "the sole and exclusive right to build, equip, maintain and operate a street railway or railways in Winter Park, Orange county, Florida, and for such purpose to use any and all the streets, roads and ways now or in the future there laid out, and it may at any time sell and dispose of such railway or railways, and the equipment thereto belonging, as well as the privilege of operating the same."
The Florida Northern Railroad Company, Inc. is one of several short line railroads run by Regional Rail, LLC. It has connections to CSX at Ocala, Florida, running north to Lowell, Florida, and south to Candler, Florida. It was formerly run by CSX as their Ocala Subdivision.
The Ocklawaha Valley Railroad, originally the Ocala Northern Railroad, was a railroad running from Silver Springs Junction, Florida to Palatka, Florida, running roughly parallel to the Oklawaha River. Except for the southernmost part, from Silver Springs Junction to Silver Springs, which was leased from the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, the railroad never had any corporate relationship with larger railroad companies.
The Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad was the final name of a system of railroads throughout Florida, becoming part of the Seaboard Air Line Railway in 1900. The system, including some of the first railroads in Florida, stretched from Jacksonville west through Tallahassee and south to Tampa. Much of the FC&P network is still in service under the ownership of CSX Transportation.
The Plant System named after its owner, Henry B. Plant, was a system of railroads and steamboats in the U.S. South, taken over by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1902. The original line of the system was the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway, running across southern Georgia. The Plant Investment Company was formed in 1882 to lease and buy other railroads and expand the system. Other major lines incorporated into the system include the Savannah and Charleston Railroad and the Brunswick and Western Railroad.
State Road 40 is a 91.832-mile-long (147.789 km) east–west route across central Florida, running from U.S. Route 41 in Rainbow Lakes Estates eastwards through Ocala over the Ocklawaha River and bridge and through the heart of the Ocala National Forest to State Road A1A in Ormond Beach. Names of the road include Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala, Fort Brooks Road from Silver Springs through Astor, Butler Road in Astor, and Granada Boulevard in Ormond Beach. Former sections in Ormond Beach are named "Old Tomoka Road" and "Old Tomoka Avenue."
Gainesville-Hawthorne State Trail is a paved rail trail in Florida.
Withlacoochee State Trail is a 46-mile (74 km) long paved, multi-use, non-motorized rail trail in Florida located in Citrus, Hernando and Pasco counties. It follows along the Withlacoochee River and passes through the Withlacoochee State Forest. It is the longest paved rail trail in Florida.
Silver Springs is a group of artesian springs that feed into the Silver River in Marion County, Florida. It is the largest artesian spring in the world and the site of the oldest commercial tourist attraction in Florida, and was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1971. Its main features are the glass-bottom boat tours on the river, which have operated there, in various forms, since 1878. Long privately owned and operated, the springs area was formerly the site of a small amusement park, Silver Springs Nature Theme Park.
U.S. Route 27 (US 27) in Florida is a north–south United States Highway. It runs 481 miles (774 km) from the South Florida Metropolitan Area northwest to the Tallahassee Metropolitan Statistical Area. Throughout the state, US 27 has been designated the Claude Pepper Memorial Highway by the Florida Legislature. It was named after long-time Florida statesman Claude Pepper, who served in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The stretch running from Miami to South Bay was originally designated the Thomas E. Will Memorial Highway by the Florida Legislature in 1937 when that portion was known as Florida State Road 26. Will, the founder of Okeelanta, Florida, had worked for almost twenty years to get the state to build a road from Miami to the area south of Lake Okeechobee. For most of its length in the state, US 27 is a divided highway.
Howard Academy, at 306 NW 7th Avenue in Ocala, Florida, was a school for African-American children opened in 1866 or 1867 by the Freedmen's Bureau. Up until that time there had been no public and almost no private education for African Americans in Florida; education for slaves was prohibited by law and free blacks were made to feel unwelcome and encouraged to leave the state.
