1955 Map of Tidewater

About this map

Tidewater sits at a low-lying junction in the mid-1950s where the Atlantic Coast Line railroad cuts diagonally across the Levy and Marion County line. This landscape is defined by a complex network of wetlands and seasonal drainages, including the expansive Big Wolf Arbor and the winding Crow Rookery Slough. The geography reveals a transition from these dense sloughs to a cluster of larger water bodies to the southeast, notably Little Bonable Lake and Bonable Lake. Local history is anchored by markers such as the Sand Pond Cem near Sand Pond, suggesting early settlement patterns and family burials tied to the surrounding prairie and timberlands. Small creeks like Coffee Creek and Sapling Branch feed into the larger hydrological system, illustrating the natural drainage patterns of this Florida interior before later 20th-century development altered the surface waters.