Horseshoe Beach

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Horseshoe Beach sits at the end of Dixie County Highway 351, roughly nineteen miles southwest of Cross City, on a point of land curving into the Gulf between the Suwannee and Steinhatchee rivers. About 169 people live there. The name comes from the horseshoe crabs in the shallows, whose blood carries a protein drug makers use to test their products. Lumber brought the first settlers in the early 1800s. In 1935 the lumber interests sold the land to two men who then let residents buy their own house lots outright, and the town incorporated in 1963. Today it is houses, a few vacation rentals, fishing businesses, a marina, a library and a waterfront park, and many of the people there are retired or work the water. Anyone expecting sand should know there is none: the town park, properly Butler-Douglas Memorial Park at 244 8th Avenue West, has a boulder and oyster shoreline, no swimming area and no lifeguards. What it has is a paved public boat ramp, eight pavilions with picnic tables, free parking, no entry charge and eight campsites taken first come first served. Scalloping over the grass flats runs from mid-June to Labor Day and fills the place on weekends. Sea trout and redfish are caught inshore, grouper and snapper out at the reefs. Hurricanes Idalia and Helene both hit the town hard. The nearest fuel is twenty miles away in Cross City