Residents enjoy a year-round calendar of special events. February produces the Homosassa Antique & Classic Car Show. In June, the famous Homosassa Raft Race is staged for charity. And, in November, the community hosts the Homosassa Arts, Crafts and Seafood Festival which draws exhibitors and visitors from around the Gulf Coast. In December, the Homosassa Springs Chamber produces a Christmas Parade of decorated and spectacularly lighted boats on the Homosassa River.
For the sportsman, Homosassa Springs provides everything a visiting fisherman could need including charter, boat rentals, guides, campgrounds, motels, and several first class, riverside restaurants. Along the shoal studded coastline are hidden some of the finest snook and redfish grounds in Florida. Offshore, one of the largest Tarpon on record was landed recently. The Homosassa River, and the several spring-fed waterways which feed the main channel provide excellent bass fishing.
Located about 60 miles north of Tampa, the “Nature Coast” area is rich in history and natural beauty. Access to the area is currently limited to U.S. 19 or I-75 through Brooksville, but work is already under way on the new Suncoast Parkway that will provide Citrus County with a direct link to the Veterans Highway and access to the Tampa Airport and the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. Once completed, area residents will have less than an hours drive to the metropolitan area.
The area surrounding Crystal River, Homosassa and Homosassa Springs is home to an incredible array of wildlife. The Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge preserves the remaining unspoiled and undeveloped habitat in Kings Bay, providing a critical habitat for the endangered West Indian Manatee. The Homosassa Springs State Wildlife Park serves as a showcase for native Florida wildlife.
To the south lies the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge includes 31,000 acres of estuarine refuge and is accessible only by boat. The tract is home to a number of endangered species, including the Florida Black Bear. This vast and beautiful patchwork of wetland and forest gives the whole region character as "Florida's Nature Coast" and provides unlimited recreational opportunity for hikers, boaters, canoeists, sportsmen, bird watchers, and campers.
Citrus County was established in 1887. The earliest known inhabitants were pre-Columbian mound builders, drawn by the Crystal River, which they called "Wewa-hi-I-aca" (clean or shining water) which provided an ideal climate, plus plentiful game and shellfish. They established a ceremonial and trade center that became one of the longest, continuously occupied sites in Florida. The Crystal River State Archaeological Site gives us the first glimpse at the earliest settlements in Citrus County. For 1,600 years (200 B.C. until A.D. 1400), the Indians of the Deptford culture appear to have occupied this site. The 14-acre, six-mound complex is one of the most imposing prehistoric ceremonial centers on Florida's west coast. Native American heritage is preserved today through names like Tsala Apopka "fish-eating place," Withlacoochee "little big river" and Istachatta "red man".
The next visitors were Spanish Conquistadors on their quest for gold. Hernando de Soto trekked through Indian territory in what is now Citrus County in the summer of 1539. He traveled through the Floral City area, along the banks of Lake Tsala Apopka past Inverness and Hernando, the city that bears his name.
The first pioneers arrived in the 1810s. The first group of permanent entrepreneurs, including New York-born David Yulee, settled on the Homosassa River. Yulee and those who followed his success developed prosperous sugar plantations in the lowlands and planted some of Florida’s first citrus groves. Yulee is also credited with building the region’s first railroad, a line that ran from the busy port of Cedar Key to the dense coastal rain forest.
Only after the Civil War did more people move into this frontier region between the Withlacoochee River and the Gulf of Mexico. Today, thanks to strong population growth and highway improvements, the Nature Coast area of Citrus County is poised to become one the state’s great success stories of the 21st century.