Kingsley History & Memories page This lake photo is from 1910. Have more Kingsley History? Email HERE. collected articles & links

Buzzy Green’s MEMORIES of Kingsley Lake is a wonderful collection of Buzzy’s childhood memories and experiences at Kingsley, written in part to inspire and encourage YOU to contribute your memories of Kingsley too. He suggests that we should write short *addendums* to be added at the end of his piece, and Suzanne Matzat Degni has already contributed a few great paragraphs about Starke’s 1950’s Teen Town. A must read if you love Kingsley Lake. (pdf)

Profile of one long-time lake resident Beverly Blackshear, a great read, but also intended to serve as an example for profiling other residents. We need to get busy writing their stories too!

A photo of Robert Smith running Strickland’s Store prompted some interesting history discussion. See if you can add any details to what others are remembering. (pdf)

A 2002 article about the Closing of Strickland’s Landing from the Gainesville Sun will make you wish we had more articles about the early days of Kingsley.

A short History of Kingsley Lake, by Tip Graham, was written to support the petition which earned Kingsley Lake the *Outstanding Florida Water* designation in July, 1989. It offers a rich historical perspective in just 1100 words. Read it and you will know more about Kingsley than most!

A short History of Camp Blanding that answers many of the questions we often hear being asked. And it’s short, so there’s no excuse for not giving it a once over.

The complete Official and Celebrated Petition that earned Kingsley its designation as an *Outstanding Florida Water* in July, 1989. Try to skim through it and you may not leave.

Articles from the special Anniversary Editions of the Bradford County Telegraph about the Alachua Trail and this area when Kingsley was bordered by three Post Offices, a story about Wilderness Preacher Jim Strickland, plus coverage of the early *boom* days of Camp Blanding at the start of WWII. Very entertaining and worthwhile.

Mary Wood Bridgman wrote A History of Kingsley Lake (67k pdf) in 1975 while a freshman at the University of Florida. She says, "I found very little published information about the lake at that time, so most of the material came from newspaper clippings and interviews of people who lived around the lake," which is probably what makes it so interesting!

A collection of passages from Kevin Hooper’s book, The Early History of Clay County, A Wilderness That Could Be Tamed, selected and transcribed by Harriett Fuquay, available as a PDF.

Old photos of Kingsley..., John Maines and Clark Thomas found some old photo-postcards of the lake on eBay. They both seem to have been made by the same photographer, perhaps even of the same dock, although Clark’s is postmarked 1948 and John’s 1910.

History of Starke... is posted on Starke’s web site. Here’s how it begins... An Act of Congress in 1850, granting Florida all of the swamp and overflowed lands owned by the U.S. Government within the state for the purpose of internal improvement, did more than any one thing to encourage construction of railroads into the interior and bring about the settlement of the State. Heretofore, most of the development had been in the coastal areas, and the interior remained largely an unknown and forbidding area, inhabited by hostile Native Americans and insects.

US Geological Survey Seismic Reflection Survey... has some interesting facts and seismic data charts about the Lake's origin as a sinkhole. Worth a look.

Geneological Archive for Bradford County, Florida... For those who may be interested in exploring the history of their relatives, here’s a link to the Bradford County Table of Contents for the Florida USGenWeb Archives... and here’s Clay County. Worth a look.


And hopefully, more history items to come. We welcome contributions!