The St Francis Pioneer Ghost Town was founded in 1887 at originally was known as "Old Town" which sat back in the woods along the St Johns River and  Dead River. The town when it was at one time booming had a weekly newspaper called the "Florida Facts", post office which was established in 1888, a general store, a hotel, a warehouse with very large wharves, sanitarium and health resort. There were also several cypress cottages as well as many residents living here. The town had several hundred acres of citrus trees and vegetable fields where water melons were grew. A wagon road where ex-drawn wagons brought logs and citrus to the town so it could be shipped out on the river. Since St. Francis had a dock so steamboats were often used for incoming travelers or for goods all the way from Palatka. Eventually a narrow gauge rail bed was laid to cut right into the town or rather tramway. The railroad connected to Jacksonville so this crippled Saint Francis and shipping from the river started to fade away.

What contributed to leaving this a ghost town?? Very simple in 1894-95 there was the great citrus freeze hundreds of vegetables and citrus tree crops were destroyed leaving the town perilous. Many residents still stayed around but eventually fires burnt down some of the buildings here and needless to say there was no way to control them. Eventually in the 1920s a hurricane hit Saint Francis obliterating  everything in its path including the town itself leaving hardly any trace behind. The town was doomed and all that remained is what today is known as St Francis Ghost Town.

Today it sits deep in Ocala National Forest an area hardly touched by man full of much wild life such as black beers, possums, alligators, raccoons, red-tailed hawks, rare woodpeckers, miniature deer, wild boards, wild dogs, and  red-winged blackbirds. It also may be home to Americas great ape known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot or her in Florida the Skunk Ape. The U.S. forest group has laid a few hiking trails in the area for hunters as well as hikers. One trail is a 7 Mile loop leading through six different eco systems. The eco systems are the old fields, oak hammock, river flood plains, hardwoods, yellow pine flat woods, riverine swamp and lastly the bayhead swamp. So basically the ghost town sits in a very diverse area. One moment you could be walking past many oak trees the next your walking through the swamp its very interesting. The forest group has taken palmetto tree logs to make bridges though the river flood plains including a log bridge over a small creek. The whole area is very beautiful but also very secluded as the trail winds through the woods.

Today campers and hikers often take the Paisley Ox Wagon road to the artesian wells and spring which sits near St Francis we were almost there our first time but it was getting to dark to see. Not much remains of the town but the vegetable fields, pilings from the dock and the wells. There may be some other surprises within the woods however some areas have so many palms, under brush, trees it makes it impossible to find such hidden treasures. Although the trail map shows a yellow and blue trail Nick and I found some other hidden trails in the woods where they lead might be a mystery so we do plan on future visits here to go exploring.

Is St Francis Trail & Ghost Town haunted? Is there strange creatures seen in this area of the woods??? These are questions that we are trying to seek the answer of. Its only natural that where the Indians once thrived as well as a town where people died that there would be a ghost or two. After all St Francis was a booming community at one time. But upon doing a little more research into the area there have been reports of a Sea Monster sighted fairly close to this ghost town. Some have reported it to climb on land and go into the woods they say its very prehistoric and looks like a Brontosaurus just a little smaller. They called it a dragon with horns often boaters claim to have almost been tipped over or seen it crashing in the woods. There have been also numerous bigfoot sightings back in these woods. According the Indians there is myths about "Sand People" and the "Mangrove People" seen in these woods. So the whole area has a gloomy feel to it you do NOT know what could be hiding, watching or surviving in these woods. Some areas have been untouched for years. There are even reports of UFOs hovering over the trees around here.

What makes this special is that it is one of our first ghost town investigation but it also is a feat to be able to investigate this place. Our first investigation here we hiked a good 8 miles. I would not recommend anybody without experience to go back into these woods. as you know there are many dangers here such as large poisonous spiders which are hanging in the middle of the trails, snakes, bear and even gators which we did see. We did not see anything of the supernatural but this place gets real weird at night there are a few cold spots, feelings of being watched, even a few unexplained noises. But of course like any woods these ones are alive lots of wild life and vegetation. But your mind can wander here you never know what you might expect we did not see a black bear till we were almost standing next to it. At night it can be very easy to get lost go off the trail and even wind up confused then those daring enough to try may just be stuck spending the night near the dead river and a forest full of mysteries.

© By

Rick-AngelOfThyNight

95 % of the photos our taken by us a few here were borrowed off sites for educational purposes only.