Tuesday 4: OUR Town Updated June 2026

June 18, 2026, I wrote a new post for this week's Tuesday 4 on June 15, but then I discovered this old one and decided to update it because it already has pictures and lots of information.  So here is the UPDATED VERSION of OUR TOWN. And HERE is the new post I wrote on June 15, 2026, but THIS one has more of the pictures of the updates.  You could consider this to be Part Two of the post written earlier this week.

 Your Town Originally posted 4/11/2023 and now with updates:

Welcome to Tuesday 4 begun by Toni Taddeo and continued in her honor.

Let's talk about your town this week!

1. Do you like your town? Is it a city, town ? Can you describe it for us?

First, let me share a couple of links with you that will give you the history and other information about our little town. If you click on these links, you will see everything you need to see and then some.
Town of Interlachen  ,  https://www.florida-backroads-travel.com/interlachen-florida.html

And after you have looked at those sites, I will show you a few of my own pictures from around town.

But to answer your  questions: 

• Yes, I do like our town. It is a small town, but big enough to cover our basic needs like a decent grocery store, doctor, wonderful church,  2 Dollar Generals, gas stations, mechanic, schools for those who still have children in school, and beautiful little lakes interspersed in and all around us; Hence, the name: Interlachen, which literally means between the lakes.

2. Are there any special points of interest in your town?

I personally like the little old historical part of our town where it originated back in the mid 1800's.  However, there really aren't any businesses in that part of town anymore...just the city hall and a park and the museum and some old buildings, oh, and of course our church, Interlachen Methodist, and the old Congregational Church I do wish more had been done to preserve and revitalize  the old downtown area, but "progress"  for our town developed out along the highway, as is the case in many small towns across our country...and the original downtown gets bypassed and forgotten.

Here are a few pictures from around our historical downtown area:

2023

2026

This little park/caboose is where the original train depot used to be.

This building below used to be a hotel back in the highlight days of our little town, before the "Big Freeze" in the 1890's that wiped out the citrus industry in this north/central part of the state. Here is a quote from the town website:

"The Town of Interlachen was settled in the late 1870’s when the building of a railroad opened the area. It developed as both a citrus growing center and a winter resort. When severe freezes in the 1890’s made it apparent that commercial citrus production was not economically viable, the town evolved into a retirement haven and later a bedroom community for Gainesville and Palatka."

This is what I wrote in 2023: "This building below used to be a general store and post office. Sadly, it has fallen into decay and it is very sad to me that it was not preserved.  More recently, since this picture was taken, there were tenants living in this building and sadly it caught fire in the upper story and is now condemned and waiting to be demolished I assume.  There is yellow tape around the building and it has been condemned. That makes me very sad."

This picture below is a replica of that building in its glory days, and this can be seen in the town museum:

The woman who runs the museum and the historical society literally made this replica, and it is very detailed and interesting. You can see more close-up pictures of this "doll house" and other items found in the museum and around town in this previous post: https://pamelasopenwindow.blogspot.com/2018/07/walking-down-memory-lane.html

Now, in 2026, that building has been somewhat restored and painted in the past year or so. Here is the most recent picture of how it looks today:

I just noticed that it has been painted almost the same colors as the model replica above! That's pretty cool!

"Brush Store" 2026

There still doesn't seem to be any new activity in this building since it's been painted, so time will tell what develops.

The museum used to be housed in this building, "Interlachen Hall", which is one building they did manage to preserve.  

Interlachen Hall and Museum in 2023

UPDATE: The museum has been moved out of this building and now the Town Hall has moved into this building recently.  

Interlachen Town Hall as of 2026

The museum moved to the old Lincoln School house building, and they are hoping to restore it eventually.

HERE is a link to when we were able to visit this old schoolhouse inside.  There are also pictures on that link of items that are in the museum, which I am assuming are now stored in this building since they moved out of the Town Hall building.

Here are a few of the old homes in the historical area:

(2023: I believe this one is actually for sale, if you are interested)  Update: No, it is sold now! 

Added in 2026: This house was recently up for sale for 149,900.   I just saw where it has sold for $125,000.  They will have a lot of work to do, but I hope they will restore it to its former glory!

Maybe these old doors will be open to visitors some day!

It would be nice to sit and swing on this porch swing!

And of course, you've seen lots of pictures of our church before. This little church is the main reason we ended up moving here in the first place...that, and the fact that our son and his wife live here too...

2026, One big change is this church is no longer affiliated with the United Methodist Church. We are now a part of the new Global Methodist Church, which is very conservative and is more in keeping with the original old Methodist church that John Wesley founded.

I should note that our town also has several other wonderful churches. There's just about one of every kind! Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Catholic, Independent, Assembly of God, and several more. So whatever your preferred religious tradition, you pretty much can find it here.

3.Does your town have parks, restaurants?   2026: So Many Changes!!!

Restaurants are few...We have this fairly new restaurant, "True Grits", (with a John Wayne theme), and we often go here after church with church friends and family for a late breakfast/early lunch.    (See below...we don't go here as often now as we once did).

UPDATE 2026:  This "True Grits" Restaurant building has seen some changes over the past couple of years. The "Hog Wild Country Cafe" building below this one had a fire in the kitchen, and so they moved out and bought THIS building and it became "Hog Wild Country Cafe".  However, within just the past week they sold the building to another restaurant that will be coming soon...not sure of the name yet, and Hog Wild moved to their other location called "Hog Wild Burgers and Shakes"...and they have expanded that menu to have the BBQ and some other specialties they had before in the OLD building. Confused?? Yeah, you should live here!!

Probably our more favorite place USED TO BE this "Hog Wild Country Cafe" building below,

 (SEE UPDATE ABOVE) , but since they had a fire in the kitchen they sold it and now this building is currently under renovation and will soon be opening up as the Backwoods Country Cafe', and it's supposed to serve Pizza and other sandwhiches and dinners. Not sure yet if they will serve breakfast.

(This is what I wrote back in 2023:)  We were happy to find the fireplace warming up the restaurant a couple of weeks ago when we had a raw, wet, chilly day:

This is the interior, which, as you can see, has lots of interesting stuff to see as well as good food.

It is also where I got to enjoy this sweet kitty on my lap on the front porch while we waited for them to open the doors at 11:00 a.m.:   (in 2023)

NOW, 2026:  The new restaurant that has bought this building is doing some renovations, but we hope it will still have this same old country vibe as before. Time will tell. It's supposed to open sometime this summer.

This is the current building for Hog Wild Burgers and Shakes and more!!! (as of June, 2026)

It is rather small, but they have some plans for expansion in the future.

Oh, there is another restaurant in town, "Nanna's Country Cafe", and we go there occasionally for breakfast or lunch.

Some of the decor in Nanna's  Country Cafe'

It's a small home-town country diner kind of place. The food is good.

And we do have a McDonalds, Domino's Pizza, and a Chinese Take out place.

Update: and we now have a Taco Bell and a Dunkin Donuts as well, a Next Door Subs, as well as a Subway.

Back in 2023: And thanks to our son and daughter in love, our town now has Dixie Cottage! UPDATE: They sold this business in 2024, and the new owners moved the business to a nearby town, so this business is no longer here as of now. (2026).  Currently this store building is empty, but something is supposed to be coming, I just don't know what yet!

Okay, back to the town...We have good schools, K-12.

This is the high school:

And the middle school: (which in 2026 is no longer being used as such. They moved the middle school students into the same building with the high school, and I'm not sure what's going on in this building!)

And I don't have a picture of the elementary school, but it is a nice modern school too.

However, Interlachen does have a lot of poor families scattered throughout out community.  Our county is one of the poorest in the state.  Our church is active in supporting local ministries in the community, like this Soup Kitchen, which feeds the hungry Mon.-Fri. at noon:

And there are several food banks and thrift stores. Our church has a thrift store and we often just give clothing and items away to those who are truly in need of them.

We also provide coats for children in the fall, and school supplies to the elementary school children as well as Christmas gifts for every child in the elementary school. It is a  wonderful ministry provided through the generous giving and love by our very small church of loving people.

Yes, we do have some nice parks for the children to play in as well...

And maybe even for the BIG KIDS to play in:

4. Do you think your town needs changes to make it better and if so what changes would you make?

Well, every town needs improvements I am sure. Ours could use some better roads for one thing. We still have many dirt roads throughout our community, and a lot of very run down old mobile homes that are abandoned out in the less developed areas.  I wish something could be done to remove a lot of them that are uninhabitable.  I also wish our historical section could be preserved better and some interesting shops be opened that would attract more visitors and shoppers to our community. 

Other than that, I really don't want it to grow too much more or it will lose that small town feel that I love.

Okay, now, let's go visit our other bloggers over at Tuesday 4 and learn more about their towns!  Thank you, Annie, for continuing this tradition!!

2026 Note: In looking back at some of the original comments on this blog post, I see many were in 2021. So apparently I originally started this post in 2021, updated it in 2023, and now again in 2026. I wanted to keep it going primarily for my own information and to look back and see the changes and/or progress being made in "Our Town" throughout the years.  I hope you enjoyed this additional tour.  It will be fun to keep updating this as the years go by.   And once again, in case you missed it, the "Part One" of this post for this week is HERE. https://pamelasopenwindow.blogspot.com/2026/06/tuesday-4our-town.html  Thank you for hanging in there with me.

Tuesday 4~Our Town

 Our Town  

The Caboose in our historic downtown

Hello! This is Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 where we ask just 4 questions each week in an effort to get you blogging, thinking and learning about others.

Maybe we can discuss the town you live in. It might be nice to find out more about where you live and why you live there. Sometimes we just fall into a place and other times we \choose.
Here's a chance to sing the praises of your town or uncover it's faults.. have at it!


1. What are the good points to living in your town? Could you interest us in moving there?

Well, you'd have to want to live in North Central Florida, which is not in the tourist belt of Florida, thank goodness! It's a rather rural community without any real claim to fame, but there is that small town feel to it, and there are lots of lakes and wooded areas and it's still not terribly expensive to live here. But it's definitely not fancy. There are more manufactured homes on dirt roads in this area than there are "real homes" on paved roads.  We are fortunate that our manufactured home happens to be on a paved road!  And even though our own "Still Waters Pond" is still very dry, little by little we are getting more rain and we hope by the end of the summer we will see our pond restored back to its original beauty.

 

This is one of many little lakes in our community...Lake Lagonda.

2. Are the things you need convenient to your home? (shopping, library, schools, entertainment?)

We have a local small grocery store, a public library, elementary-high school, several Dollar General Stores and gas stations/handy stores, thrift stores, a McDonalds, Dunkin' Donuts, Taco Bell, and some other small privately owned cafe's. Our doctor's office is also very convenient, as is also the CVS Pharmacy, and the nearest hospital is about 15 miles away. Also in the city that is 15 miles away is a Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, and all the basic things you need to survive. Restaurants, Publix, and many other kinds of businesses. We are centrally located between two cities, Palatka to our east, and Gainesville to our west. And St. Augustine is about an hour away to the east.  Also, we can get to the beach on the Atlantic coast in about an hour, or we could go to the Gulf Coast on the west also in a little over an hour, so we truly are in a prime location. Thankfully the hurricanes do not impact our area quite as seriously as they do closer to the coasts.  

One of our newer shopping experiences in our community is this "Trading Post at Deep Creek":

And as I've mentioned before, our son actually works there part time and also has a booth inside where he sells some of the wooden craft items that he builds.

It's a fun and interesting place to visit and shop!

There's also another newer store in town, Blue Pond Market, and it is similar to the type of store our family once owned known as "Dixie Cottage", for those of you who remember that season of our lives!

It is named "Blue Pond Market" because our little town was originally named "Blue Pond", and this old house has been here since the "beginning of time", so to speak.  

"Interlachen, Florida, was originally known as "Blue Pond" from roughly 1852 until the 1880s. The settlement earned its name from one of the area's clear, spring-fed lakes, and was established when early pioneers, including Pennsylvania native Dr. O.S. Whipp, built log cabins along its shores. [1, 2, 3]"

And yes, our son does sell some of his wood working products there as well!

Currently it is only open on Saturdays, so don't come during the week expecting to shop there or you will be disappointed!

3. Did you choose your town or did you just end up there?

We chose to move here when our son married a sweet young lady who lived here. We fell in love with the little church where they got married and the people here, and we wanted to live closer to our son. Our previous home was about 30 miles away and in a very rural community without very many amenities for "older folks like us".  Once both our sons moved away from there, we just felt like we were too far from civilization, so we sold our home there and moved here.

Our church, Interlachen Methodist Church

4. Is your town known for any special foods, activities, places or people?

Our town is named "Interlachen" (click HERE for link to the town information), which means "between the lakes".  There are many lakes in this area, and so it is popular for fishing and for people seeking a place away from the cities. But it is definitely NOT touristy or very commercialized, which we do like.  We have the basics that we need here, and we prefer that it stay that way and not get too big.  Regarding special food, the only thing I can think of is there is a large Blueberrry Farm here where people can come and pick their own blueberries, blackberries and strawberries in season.

Our town does have a great 4th of July celebration every year, and this year looks extra special:

HERE is a LINK to a previous post I wrote about our town in 2023. and I have just completed the updates over there, so you may want to check it out.   There are a lot of pictures of our community in that post that you may find interesting if you haven't been a blogging friend for that long. (And some new ones have been added as of 6/18/2026).

All in all, we do like our little community. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but we really don't want to see the kind of growth here that they are experiencing a little further south of us.  We'd prefer to keep this one of Florida's "best kept secrets".  

And besides all this, I would never have had the opportunity to have our sweet friend "Blackie" come and sit beside me while I write if we'd never moved here!

He's got his paw on my journal that says "With God all things are possible" , Matthew 19:26! 

Yes, that's so very true, Blackie...so very true!

Good night friends. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our town.  Now let's go check out where everyone else is living over at https://tuesdaysplace.blogspot.com/2026/06/our-town.html