Remembering Suwannee: County site selection drama, Part 7

Eric Musgrove Contributor This week, we begin the final topic of how the current location of the Suwannee County Courthouse came to be. In this article and the next two, we will be looking at the fates of the previous courthouses, at least as best as can be determined by the existing records. The first Suwannee County Courthouse, as designated in the Florida law that created Suwannee County on Dec. 21, 1858, was "the house of William Hines." Unfortunately, Florida law at the time did not require the Board of County Commissioners to keep records of their meetings. Therefore, much about the first 10 years of our county's history, including the exact whereabouts of this first courthouse, is