Panhandle Pioneer Settlement

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The Panhandle Pioneer Settlement at Blountstown is eighteen historic buildings, restored and open to the public, gathered onto one site so that a rural Florida community can be walked through rather than read about. The oldest is the Chason Cabin from the 1820s, followed by the Wells Cabin of 1846 and the Bailey Log Home from about 1860. The Sexton Cabin dates from about 1872 and the Wells Smoke House from about 1876. Later buildings fill out the working town: the Yon House of 1897, the Shiloh School from the late 1800s, Doctor Dowling's office from the early to middle 1900s, the Altha Calaboose of 1927, the Post Office and General Store of 1941, and the Red Oak Methodist Church built in 1940 and 1941. A blacksmith shop, cobbler shop, firehouse, grist mill, honey house, club house and gymnasium stand alongside them. Willard and Linda Smith founded the settlement in July 1989 to record rural Florida life from the 1820s through the Second World War, and the eighteen buildings are set out across five acres at 17869 Northwest Pioneer Settlement Road. The telephone number is 850-674-2777. Several events a year are free, among them the Old Tyme Country Fair, the Peanut Boil and Syrup Making Day. Pioneer Day and Goat Day, held together in October, carry a small charge. The settlement takes school field trips and runs classes in blacksmithing, broom-making and canning, with apprenticeships alongside working artisans, so the crafts are taught rather than only demonstrated