Cedar Key State Museum is an

Florida State Park There are 175 state parks and 9 state trails in the U.S. state of Florida which encompass more than , providing recreational opportunities for both residents and tourists. Almost half of the state parks have an associated local 501(c)(3) non-pr ...

located at 12231 SW 166th Court,

Cedar Key, Florida Cedar Key is a city in Levy County, Florida, United States. The population was 702 at the 2010 census. The Cedar Keys are a cluster of islands near the mainland. Most of the developed area of the city has been on Way Key since the end of the 19th ...

. The museum displays items collected by Saint Clair Whitman, a local resident who established the first museum in his home. His collection included such items as sea shells and Indian artifacts. The museum displays these as well as

diorama A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies such as military vehicle mode ...

s depicting life around Cedar Key and contains a large collection of related historical information. An important feature of the museum is the Saint Clair Whitman house, built in the 1880s and acquired by Whitman in the 1920s. The house has been restored to depict life in Cedar Key c. 1920 - 1930. It was moved to the museum site in 1991 and restored for public viewing. The Memory Walk, a brick trail, links the house to the museum. In addition to the museum, there is a short nature trail. Among the wildlife of the park are gray

squirrels Squirrels are members of the family (biology), family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flyi ...

doves Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...

, mockingbirds,

blue jay The blue jay (''Cyanocitta cristata'') is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to eastern North America. It lives in most of the eastern and central United States; some eastern populations may be migratory. Resident populations are a ...

woodpeckers Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. M ...

, and green tree frogs. Native vegetation can be seen on the nature trail as well as on the museum grounds.

Inside the Whitman House

File:Cedar Key State Museum Whitman inside04.JPG File:Cedar Key State Museum Whitman inside03.JPG File:Cedar Key State Museum Whitman inside01.JPG File:Cedar Key State Museum Whitman inside06.JPG

John Muir

The naturalist

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

visited Cedar Key in 1867 on his historic walk from Kentucky to Florida. He wrote:

For nineteen years my vision was bounded by forests, but today, emerging from a multitude of tropical plants, I beheld the Gulf of Mexico stretching away unbounded, except by the sky. What dreams and speculative matter for thought arose as I stood on the strand, gazing out on the burnished, treeless plain!

The John Muir historic marker was placed on the museum grounds in 1983, commemorating his visit.

References

External links

Florida Online Park Guide - Cedar Key Museum State ParkCedar Key Museum State Park
State parks of Florida Museums in Levy County, Florida Historic house museums in Florida Biographical museums in Florida Parks in Levy County, Florida Florida Native American Heritage Trail Cedar Key, Florida {{Florida-state-park-stub