Travel North Florida

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The rural town of Evinston looks much as it did nearly a century ago, and one building in particular has stood the test of time. The Wood & Swink Old Store and Post Office, built in 1884, is Florida's oldest Federal post office and one of the few remaining country store post offices in the United States. The post office has been in continuous operation since 1882. The general store is operated by Freddie Wood who grows produce on the farm where the post office stands. The land has been in his family for over 100 years, while the Wood family has supplied the postmaster for over 70 years. Wilma Sue Wood, the current postmaster, hopes to retire soon. But in the meanwhile she holds on while the US Postal Service looks for someone willing to work in an authentic non-air conditioned 19th century building.

Today's visitors to Evinston are in for a real treat. A modest gem in the midst of a model conservation district, the hamlet is set in the Triangle of Lakes between Lochloosa, Orange and Newnans Lakes. Concerned citizens, county preservation programs and the State of Florida have set aside thousands of acres as natural preserves. Stunning views of Orange Lake and lands adjacent to scenic highways are protected by private landholders who have chosen to place conservation easements on their property. Cycling and horse trails traverse the region. Holding the highest concentration of bald eagle nests in Florida and home to the endangered sandhill cranes, this is a land of beauty.

" Cross Creek is a bend in the road, by land, and the flowing of Lochloosa Lake into Orange Lake, by water. We are four miles west of the small village of Island Grove, nine miles east of a turpentine still and on the other sides we do not count distance at all, for the two lakes and the broad marshes create an infinite space between us and the horizon."

So begins Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings memoir, “Cross Creek.” The road with the bend, once an ancient Timucan trail, a Spanish trader's path and now a Florida Scenic Highway snakes around Orange Lake from the Rawlings Homestead to the small hamlet of Evinston. Bridging the River Styx it becomes CR 225, beloved by regional painters as the Artist’s Path, “perhaps the most enchanted mile of road on which to put up an easel." You will often come across a lone painter set up with an easel busy capturing the light across the lake or a bit of scenery of river and palm and wildlife.

Remarkably, the landscape immortalized by Rawlings and sought out by painters, retains wildness and mystery intact. Original homesteads, family farms and scenic views are being preserved for future generations through a model conservation effort spearheaded by the Conservation Trust for Florida. Wilma Sue and Freddie Wood were recently honored by the CTF with a Land Conservation Award. Freddie Wood, a 5th generation farmer, works the land in the town named after his great grandfather, Captain William Drayton Evins. Designated a Century Pioneer Family Farm by the Florida Agricultural Museum, the farm has been in the Wood family for more than 100 years. Conservation easements will preserve the land and the scenic views in perpetuity. The 2006 Evinston to Cross Creek Paint Out, a joint project of the Florida's Eden Plan, the Artists Alliance of North Florida, the CTF, and the hamlets of Evinston and Cross Creek raised over sixteen thousand dollars towards the preservation of the Post Office. Freddie Wood says,

“Maybe it is wrong to love land, but I always have loved our farm; so peaceful to get away from the rest of the world and go talk to the cattle and look at the wildlife. Most any time on the property, there are eagles, sandhill cranes, or hawks. Many other species can also be seen. I would so much love to see our little part of the world saved from the bulldozers and the concrete and left as is for my children and grand children to walk on and love it as I have."