Fort McCoy is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Marion County, Florida Marion County is a county located in the North Central region of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 375,908. Its county seat is Ocala. Marion County comprises the Ocala, Florida Metropolitan S ...

, United States. It is situated northeast of

Ocala Ocala ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Marion County, Florida, United States. Located in North Central Florida, the city's population was 63,591 as of the 2020 census, up from 56,315 at the 2010 census and making it the 43rd-most popul ...

and lies between the towns of Sparr and Eureka on County Road 316 and is directly north of Silver Springs on County Road 315. The community is part of the Ocala Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

Fort McCoy is located at . The community is located west of the

Ocala National Forest The Ocala National Forest is the second largest nationally protected forest in the U.S. State of Florida. It covers of North Central Florida. It is located east of Ocala, Florida, Ocala and southeast of Gainesville, Florida, Gainesville. The ...

History

Fort McCoy was originally named Fort Mackay. MacKay and MacCoy were both settlers in the area who were killed by Indians during the war. The town of Fort McCoy is named after the settler Jeb MacCoy but spelled differently. When hostilities with Native Americans worsened, Jeb MacCoy was killed by Indians while bringing his family into Fort Russell. Captain Mackay was head of the local militia, and was killed while surveying Itonia Scrub on March 20, 1839.

Education

The first school in Fort McCoy was supposedly a log cabin that was built near the fort; and it is thought to have been abandoned during the

Second Seminole War The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups of people collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of Muscogee, Creek and Black Seminoles as well as oth ...

. When the Union Church was built near the Fort McCoy Cemetery, it was used as the school, with church services on the weekends. Sometime between the 1890s and the first decade of the 1900s, a wooden building was built to serve as the school. In 1935, this building was destroyed in a fire. A small new school (to serve the approximate 75 pupils at the time) was built on the land donated by Dr Percy F. Lisk, which was right in front of the old schools location. The new brick school opened in 1936. The earliest known student grade levels are from the 1940s, when the school was known as Fort McCoy High School. Fort McCoy High School was closed in 1963 and re-opened soon after as Fort McCoy Elementary School. The population of Fort McCoy increased over the years, and by the 1980s the property was a vast land full of "portable classrooms". Due to the population increase and age of the building (50 years old), the Marion County School Board decided to have a new school built in 1986. The original brick building became the Fort McCoy Public Library in 1996, after a $60,000 renovation. In 1988, the new campus opened, renamed as Fort McCoy School, which now served elementary and middle school students (Pre-K to Eighth grade). That campus is still being used today, as well as the same grade levels being served. Most kids from kindergarten through eighth grade attend Fort McCoy School. Most high school students in Fort McCoy attend North Marion High School, while some attend Lake Weir High School.

References

External links

Veterans of Foreign Wars Veterans Village
at Fort McCoy, Florida {{DEFAULTSORT:Fort McCoy, Florida McCoy Unincorporated communities in Marion County, Florida Waystations