Pasco County, Florida: History
=== Early history ===
The earliest known residents of Pasco County were the Timucua people who lived on the land in the early 1200s. Settlers in Florida brought diseases to the area however, wiping out the tribe. Other Native American tribes like the Calusa also lived along the Gulf of Mexico in Pasco County. The tribe had a deep-rooted connection between the land and its inhabitants.
In the 1500s, Spanish explorers came into the Florida region, encountering with the Native American tribes. This started major cultural exchanges for the groups. Pasco County, at that point became a point of interest to the Spanish explorers because of its strategic coastal location.
The Creek Native tribe from Georgia and Alabama migrated to Florida with one tribe becoming known as the Seminoles in the region. The tribe fought with the British against American settlers during the First Seminole War and had constant fighting with the Spanish until the buying of Florida to the United States in 1819. The United States military had major conflict with the Native Americans in the Second Seminole War that included the destruction of Fort Dade, of which Dade City is named after.
When Civil War broke out in 1861, Florida joined the Confederate States of America. Though Pasco County was too far to be changed by the war in much of the conflicts, men from Pasco County supported both sides of the conflict. The closest engagement of Pasco County soldiers was in Bayport, Hernando County, Florida.
Pasco County was founded on June 2, 1887, from the southern third of Hernando County. The legislation was passed by former Governor Edward A. Perry to divide the former Hernando County into three counties. The legislation also created Citrus County from the northern third of Hernando County. The county was named after Samuel Pasco, who had just been elected to the United States Senate, though he never visited the county.
Pasco County's early towns were Anclote, Blanton, Dade City, Earnestville, Fort Dade (not to be confused with Fort Dade on Egmont Key), Macon (Trilby), Lacoochee, St. Leo, and San Antonio.
Dade City was named the temporary county seat with the same legislation to make Pasco County. It stayed temporary until March 14, 1889, when W.B. Lynch got a petition with 320 signatures to hold an election for the county seat. The board accepted the petition with the election for April 11, 1889. On April 16, 1889, Dade city won with 432 votes of the 765.
Citrus was an important industry when the county was formed in 1887. Though, in December 1894 and then again in February 1895, temperatures fell throughout the state, in an event called The Great Freeze. Many citrus growers lost their crops from the freeze in Pasco County.
As early as 1914, residents of the western part of the county proposed forming a separate county or merging with Pinellas County, as Dade City was not centrally located in the county. Several large sawmills operated in the county in the early part of the 20th century. The issue was finally resolved in 1979 with the construction of identical government centers in both Dade City and New Port Richey, now called West Pasco Government Center and East Pasco Government Center. …