Every second weekend of November, the Silver River Museum and Silver Springs State Park in Ocala, Florida host Ocali Country Days Festival, a celebration of traditional Florida pioneer life. Florida is different when it comes to history. It seems like every town , or at least every county, has a pioneer village of some sort, serving as an historic park featuring houses and buildings from the 1800s. The Silver River/Silver Springs park is no exception. There are a number of structures, cabins, barns, outbuildings, cane syrup grinding station, a church, and Seminole-style chickees. During Ocali Days and certain other days of the year, there are costumed historical interpreters eager to show off their assigned structures and talk about the day to day life of the Native Americans and the first white settlers of Florida. Visitors can learn about housebuilding and housekeeping, foodways, syrup making, soap making, weapons, quilting, weaving, and fiber work, and much more. This pioneer village is very well done and fun to visit.
The Silver River Museum is an absolute gem. It is a small museum with a lot to say. It displays the paleontology and archaeology of the Silver Springs area, so there are great exhibits showing the mega-flora and humans who occupied Central Florida over the last 10,000 to 15,000 years. Mastodons, giant bears, and giant wildcats are on display along with dugout canoes that are several hundreds of years old, pioneer tools, and even movie memorabilia from the days of the 1930s to 1950s when Silver Springs was the stand-in for the jungles of Africa and South America, and movies like the classic Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies were filmed there.
.jpg)
The Silver River Museum and "Cracker" Village (website https://silverrivermuseum.com/ ) are administered by the Marion County School District and Marion County's students enjoy many field trips and special events there every year, so visitors need to check the website for actual days and hours that the facility is open to the public. It's next door to one of Florida's most visited state parks, Silver Springs, where you can still enjoy nature, canoe or kayak, and take a cruise on a glass-bottomed boat (website https://www.floridastateparks.org/silversprings ). Plan to do both!
Ocali Country Days was a great day. It would have been much better if we didn't have to wait 1.5 hours for a shuttle ride from parking to the actual site and 45 minutes of waiting to get back to our vehicle. One would think that planners of a regular, popular event would realize that more than one bus and two small trams would be required to move hundreds of people efficiently.
.jpg)
