MUSEUM & CULTURE
Old Courthouse Heritage Museum
Citrus County · Gulf Coast
The 1912 county courthouse, saved from demolition, where Elvis Presley filmed a courtroom scene in 1961.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
The courthouse was built in 1912 to designs by J. R. MacEachron and Willis R. Biggers, and it mixes Neo-Classical, Italian Renaissance, Prairie School and Mission elements in one building, which tells you something about the ambitions the county had for itself. In 1961 scenes from Follow That Dream, starring Elvis Presley, were filmed in its courtroom. By the 1990s it was scheduled for demolition. Listing on the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 1992, stopped that, and an eight-year restoration followed, led by the Citrus County Historical Society; when the team came to put the second floor back in 2000 they used the Elvis footage as their reference for what the courtroom had looked like. The museum opened in the restored building that same year and the Historical Society still runs it. The exhibits are local county history, with a temporary Florida Foodways show and online exhibits covering the history of Chassahowitzka Springs and Black education in Citrus County. It opens Tuesday through Saturday, ten until four
Keep comparing