About Monticello

 

The City of Monticello is the center of rural Jefferson County with a population of about 3,000. It is a small, working class community that serves as the county seat and supports the surrounding agricultural district. It is located in north-central Florida, thirty miles east of Tallahassee and 120 miles west of Jacksonville. 

 

Settlement of the town began in the early nineteenth century initially as a frontier post office called Robison.  In 1826, the year of Thomas Jefferson’s death, it was established as the county seat and renamed Monticello after the third president’s Virginia residence. 

 

The courthouse served as the centerpiece of the town plan, laid out in an orthogonal grid.  Indian wars in the 1830s and later the Civil War, 1861-1865 straddled a brief period of commercial and governmental growth, which resumed in the 1880s. 

 

Cotton production and exploitation of timber for naval stores, aided by improved rail connections, fueled commercial growth in the late part of the century.  A weevil infestation devastated the cotton industry about 1915.  Production of watermelon seed, tobacco, nursery plants and corn took the place of cotton in local agriculture. 

 

 

 

 

Each year, during the third weekend of June, a Watermelon Festival is held to honor this traditional crop. 

 

The festival has enjoyed 65 plus years of watermelon, music, children’s theater, pageants, Street Dance, arts and crafts vendors, food, a 5K run, car show, art show, ghost tours, seed spitting contest, watermelon carving contest, softball tournament, Beer Garden, parade and much, much more. 

 

Nothing says it’s summertime more than the Watermelon Festival in Monticello! Ask Kim or John for more information on what to do in th area.