Bristol, Florida
Bristol, Florida
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2289262

Bristol, Florida

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2289262

Bristol, Florida

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Bristol, Florida

Bristol is a city in and the county seat of Liberty County, Florida, United States. It is the only incorporated city in Liberty County. The population was 918 at the 2020 census.

Bristol was first settled in 1859, and started with a population of 300, with the purpose of being the county seat of Liberty County. The community consisted of one general store, three sawmills, three gristmills, a hotel, a Baptist church, a Methodist church, and a Presbyterian church. An American pioneer named Moses Strause, who was one of the first non-indigenous settlers, deeded land to the county on which a small log building that Strause built was converted into the county's first courthouse. During that time, the prices of land ranged from $2.00 to $25.00 per acre (0.404686 hectare).

The post office's first postmaster, D.G. Harrell, had mail brought in by boat from Columbus, Georgia to Apalachicola, Florida on Mondays and Thursdays, and the principal exports were beeswax, cotton, hides, honey, and oranges. The closest railroad and express office was located in Chattahoochee, Florida, while closest bank during that time was 42 miles (67.5924 kilometres) away, in Tallahassee.

Despite being in existence since 1859, it wasn't until June 19, 1958, when the City of Bristol was officially incorporated as a municipality.

A widely reported claim was once made by Elvy E. Callaway, (who was a former pro-NAACP lawyer, a former Baptist minister, and a former gubernatorial candidate who ran as a Republican for Florida governor in the 1936 election), stated that the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden lay in northern Liberty County. He cited as evidence the Apalachicola River, with its four river heads, and local sources of torreya known as Florida torreya (Torreya taxifolia), which he claimed was gopher wood, the material said to have been used by Noah in constructing his ark. Callaway transformed the area into a tourist attraction, specifically a roadside attraction, that he owned and operated from 1956 until his death, in 1981. Soon after his 1981 passing, The Nature Conservancy took ownership of the land and its forest (with its rare, critically endangered species of torreya), renaming it the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve, while keeping the original name of the entrance path to the nature preserve as Garden of Eden Road, and also retaining the name for the Garden of Eden Trail.

The approximate coordinates for the City of Bristol is located in northwestern Liberty County at 30°25′37″N 84°58′45″W / 30.427063°N 84.979099°W / 30.427063; -84.979099, in the Florida Panhandle part of North Florida along the Big Bend region.

It sits atop a 150-foot-high (46 m) bluff overlooking the eastern side of the Apalachicola River. Florida State Road 20 passes through the city, leading west 4 miles (6 km) to Blountstown and east 44 miles (71 km) to Tallahassee, the state capital. Florida State Road 12 leads northeast from Bristol 18 miles (29 km) to Greensboro.

According to the United States Census Bureau, Bristol has a total area of 1.6 square miles (4.2 km2), all land.

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