Historic Madison, FL

            My wife and I took a trip to Madison, Florida this past weekend. Madison is a small town of about 3000 people just a few miles north of Interstate 10, west of Tallahassee. It’s about two and a half hours from where we live in Dunnellon. A little search of the web revealed it had a quaint historic district with homes that were 150 to 200 years old, so we decided to make the trip.

After a late start we arrived in Madison in early afternoon and stopped at a KFC for lunch, then spent the rest of the day wandering about the historic district taking photos and marveling at the beautiful homes there.

Madison County was founded in 1827 and named for President James Madison. The town of Madison (I’m not sure if it, too, was named after James Madison) was founded in 1838 from land obtained from Madison Livingston and became the county seat.

Most of the historic district is laid out around Range Street and about the centrally located Four Freedoms Park. Across the street from the Park is the impressive County Courthouse. The most well known historic home in the district is probably the Wardlaw-Smith-Goza House, also across from the Park, which dates from about 1860 and served as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War.