The reach of the river from Ichetucknee Spring to U.S. Hwy 27 is well known to many Florida residents as a "tubers paradise." Tubes, rafts, canoes, and small boats put in at the head spring and float leisurely down the run with swimmers, snorklers, and scuba divers stopping off at the springs along the way to investigate the secrets of the "mystic" waters.
The Ichetucknee Springs are about 5 mi. NW. of Fort White, and about midway between Branford and Fort White, north of U.S. Hwy 27. The springs are along both sides of the Ichetucknee River which serves, in part, as the boundary between Columbia and Suwannee counties. Drive 2.2 mi. N. on State Hwy 47 from Fort White, Columbia County, turn left onto State Hwy 238 and continue about 3.8 mi. to the Ichetucknee Springs State Park, turn left into the park and proceed to the parking area to the right (west); the first of the spring pools is a few hundred feet to the southeast.
These springs comprise a group of nine named and many unnamed springs along the upper 2.5-mi reach of the Ichetucknee River. The upper and most northerly spring forms the head of the river and is named Ichetucknee Spring. From here the river flows about 1.5 mi. S., then 4 mi. SW. to discharge into the Santa Fe River. The remaining eight named springs of the group are, in downstream order, Cedar Head Spring, Blue Hole Spring, Roaring Springs, Singing Springs, Boiling Spring, Grassy Hole Springs, Mill Pond Spring, and Coffee Spring. Some of the flow of the Ichetucknee Springs group may be water from Alligator Creek and Rose Creek. The flow of both creeks disappears into sinkholes north of the springs.
The springs are within the confines of the Ichetucknee Springs State Park, which occupies 2,241 acres in Columbia and Suwannee counties and was established on January 6, 1970. In years past the area was used by local residents for swimming, watering of livestock, and some adjacent areas were ruined for phosphate. Mill Pond Spring at one time had a grist mill operating near the log dam just below the spring. Mission Springs is said to have derived its name from an old Spanish mission located nearby.
Over the years since the Indians roamed these lands, the name Ichetucknee took on different spellings and different meanings. The springs apparently got their name from a Seminole Indian town at the mouth of the Ichetucknee River. Most definitions of the meaning of the name refer to a "ponding of water" with some reference to beavers which at one time lived in the river. There is no ponding, but beaver bones have been found in the river.
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