State Road 471 (SR 471) is a two-lane rural highway primarily in Sumter County in the state of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. It runs north and south from U.S. Route 98 (US 98) in northwestern

Polk County Polk County is the name of twelve counties in the United States, all except two named after president of the United States James Knox Polk: * Polk County, Arkansas * Polk County, Florida * Polk County, Georgia * Polk County, Iowa * Polk Count ...

US 301 U.S. Route 301 (US 301) is a spur of U.S. Route 1 running through the South Atlantic States. It runs from Biddles Corner, Delaware at Delaware Route 1 to Sarasota, Florida at U.S. Route 41. It passes through the states of Delaware, Mar ...

near Sumterville in Sumter County.

Route description

State Road 471 begins at US 98 in northwestern Polk County, which is just southeast of Branchborough in

Pasco County Pasco County is located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. According to the 2020 census, the population was 561,691. Its county seat is Dade City, and its largest city is Zephyrhills. The county is named after Samuel Pasco ...

and the eastern terminus of County Road 54, a county extension of SR 54. The road soon leaves Polk County and runs along the Pasco-Polk County Line. Here the road runs entirely through preserved forest land and swampland, including the Green Swamp. Contrary to what many maps indicate it is not as straight through this area shifting from left to right and vice versa on a random basis. Crossing the Withlacoochee River, the Pasco-Polk border is replaced by the Pasco-Sumter border, and the landscape described earlier continues. Eventually it enters part of the

Withlacoochee State Forest The Withlacoochee State Forest is in the western central part in the U.S. state of Florida, near Lecanto, Inverness, Floral City, Brooksville, Ridge Manor, and Dade City. The forest was named for the Withlacoochee River, which passes thr ...

, and some distance later, the Pasco-Sumter Line is replaced by the Hernando-Sumter Line. After leaving the forest the road crosses over the Little Withlacoochee River where the Hernando-Sumter border turns west, and SR 471 is now entirely in Sumter County. Eventually, the road slows down into

Tarrytown, Florida Tarrytown is an unincorporated community in central Sumter County, Florida, United States. The ZIP Code for this community is 33597, which is shared by Webster, four miles to the north. Geography Tarrytown is bordered by the Withlacoochee State ...

where it approaches a lumber mill, and crosses the former right-of-way for the

Orange Belt Railway The Orange Belt Railway (later known as the Sanford & St. Petersburg Railroad) was a narrow gauge railroad established in 1885 by Russian exile Peter Demens in Florida. It was one of the longest narrow gauge railroads in the United States at th ...

just south of the intersection of State Road 50. North of Tarrytown, SR 471 becomes as straight as road maps incorrectly indicate it to be south of Tarrytown. Most of this segment of the road runs primarily through farmland interrupted only by the occasional rural road, and county road without shields. However the amount of farmland is reduced, but not eliminated, once it runs through the City of Webster, a popular farm-to-market trading post. Within Webster, SR 471 serves as a terminus of County Road 478A and 4/10 of a mile later intersects County Road 478, which spans from US 301 in the St. Catherine/Croom-A-Coochie area to Center Hill. SR 471 shares a 3/10 mile concurrency with CR 478 between Southeast First Street and Northwest Fourth Street. Outside of the Webster city limits, farmland becomes more prominent again, and the road becomes part of an unincorporated community named Belville's Corner, which is also the intersection with County Road 48, a tri-county extension of State Road 48. North of Belville's Corner, the road intersects the eastern terminus of County Road 476 and western terminus of County Road 567. Near Sumterville, SR 471 shifts slightly to the northwest and runs in close proximity to a former

Seaboard Air Line Railroad The Seaboard Air Line Railroad , which styled itself "The Route of Courteous Service," was an American railroad which existed from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime rival, t ...

line that ran towards Winter Haven, and carried Amtrak trains until 1988. Two county roads of minor significance include County Road 528 and later 526, both of which lead to a campus of the Lake-Sumter Community College. Like those two streets, SR 471 terminates at

. However, unlike these two the segment of US 301 is also shared with County Road 470.

Major intersections

References

External links

Florida Route Log (SR 471)
{{Commons category, Florida State Road 471

471 __NOTOC__ Year 471 ( CDLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Novus and Probianus (or, less frequently, year 1224 '' A ...