WATER & COAST
Fanning Springs State Park
Levy County · Gulf Coast
Two hundred acres on the Suwannee River at the Levy and Gilchrist county line, built around a spring that has been losing ground.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
It was one of the thirty-three first-magnitude springs in Florida, but the flow had dropped enough by 2008 that it is now counted as historically first magnitude rather than currently so, which is the plain fact and worth knowing before driving out expecting a torrent. The basin is still open for swimming and the water still holds its temperature, so manatees come up the run from the Suwannee in the cold months. A boardwalk leads to a gazebo over the river where sturgeon are sometimes seen. People have been here a very long time: paleo-Indian sites in the park go back some fourteen thousand years. Fort Fanning was built nearby in 1838 during the Second Seminole War and named for Colonel Alexander Campbell Wilder Fanning; nothing of it stands. The springs then served as a steamboat landing for plantation goods until the railroads crossed the river. The state bought the land in 1993 and the park service took it over in 1997. The Nature Coast State Trail runs past
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