McIntosh Railway depot

McIntosh in Marion County, is a lovely small town, where large Victorian homes, many of them beautifully restored, sit in quiet streets under giant oak trees, swathed with Spanish moss.

The village dates to the early 1800s, when John H. McIntosh squatted on some land in the area, and gave his name to a town that was yet to be built. In 1830, Nehemiah Brush bought 4,000 acres from an old Spanish land grant. Early settlers came by boat up the St. Johns River to Palatka, about 60 miles away, and gradually drifted to this spot on Orange Lake. As with many rural towns, it was the railroad that brought settlers and then development. The Brush heirs donated land for creation of the narrow-gauge Florida Southern Railroad; later the Seaboard Railway Co. established a depot.

It was the desire to save and restore the depot that brought about the formation of the Friends of McIntosh Inc. in 1973. Although the Seaboard company sold the group the building for $1, the Friends needed to raise about $7,600 to move the depot off the railroad's right of way and to buy a new site. The need for those funds led to the creation of the 1890s Day Festival. Along with restoration of the Depot and later the Carriage House the money funds many local charities, and the preservation efforts led to the McIntosh historic district being placed on the National Register of Historic sites in 1981.