Ferlain Hoover, Park Manager
As Florida continues to modernize in the 21st century, I find that it’s important to have places where we can go back and reflect on our history. Cedar Key Museum State Park provides one of these windows into the past through our interpretive museum.
Meticulously crafted, our exhibits highlight the history of Cedar Key, from the indigenous people who once lived off the land to the booming timber industry of the 19th century and beyond. The museum also displays the collections of St. Clair Whitman, a former Cedar Key resident whose extensive collection of seashells and Native American artifacts was once featured in National Geographic.
Beyond the museum, our park offers visitors a chance to literally step back in time through the historic Whitman house. Dedicated to the park by St. Clair Whitman’s surviving family in 1991, the house has been restored to what it would have looked like in the 1920s.
Touring the house offers a unique look into a bygone way of life on Florida’s Gulf Coast, an experience only possible at Cedar Key Museum State Park.
