Route #79 Duette – Parrish – Ellenton – Terra Ceia

Route #79 covers 72 round-trip miles across Manatee County, passing through rural communities, former railroad towns, and historic coastal areas. The journey begins in Duette, an agricultural zone known for its strawberry fields and for hosting the last Strawberry School in Florida, and continues toward Parrish, where ranching, plantations, and the railroad shaped local life during the nineteenth century.

The route then reaches Ellenton, home to the Gamble Plantation Historic State Park, a former sugar estate linked to events of the Civil War era. Along the way, remnants of ghost towns, military forts, and abandoned rail lines illustrate the successive phases of settlement, economic growth, and decline that transformed this region.

The final section arrives at the island of Terra Ceia, located at the entrance to Tampa Bay, a site once inhabited by Indigenous peoples and later visited by early Spanish explorers. Surrounded by protected waters and natural preserves, the area brings together historical legacy, coastal scenery, and cultural memory from different periods of Florida’s past.

This route can be found in Discovering Florida – Volume 4.