Visit to Pioneer Florida Museum and Village

I can’t explain why it took so long for us to visit this museum in Dade City, FL. We saw it from the road many times while driving to another destination. We attend many other events celebrating the rural way of life of Florida, but somehow missed this one. During a recent conversation, a friend mentioned visiting Dade City, and we decided to take advantage of the continuing beautiful winter weather here to take a day trip. While researching what we might do, I found the Pioneer Florida Museum and we decided to make that our first stop.

The grounds open at 10 a.m., and we were the first in the door. The building we entered contains many exhibits of early Florida life such as a music room, where the family would gather to entertain each other before television or the Internet, kitchen utensils from the days when most of the food production occurred in the home and not in a factory or restaurant, and hundreds of old tools.

We left that building and admired the recreated train station, and of course pulled the cord to sound the train whistle. The Lacoochee School House build in 1926 and moved to the museum grounds shows the one room school house with the small wooden desks that have holes for the ink well. We moved on to the church, then one of the oldest wood houses still standing in Pasco, the barn with all kinds of old carriages, farm implements and tractors.

We enjoyed the visit so much we returned a week later with family who were in town, and they enjoyed it too. Admission is a reasonable $8 for adults, $6 for seniors, and $4 for students.