About
About Jefferson County
The Keystone County, the only Florida county that stretches from the Georgia line to the Gulf, where canopy roads, working farms, and a courthouse modeled on Monticello tell the story of Old Florida.
The Other Florida
Jefferson County sits in the heart of “the other Florida”: a Florida of rolling red hills, stately oaks draped in Spanish moss, and small towns that still wave when you pass. Established in 1827 and named for Thomas Jefferson, it is the only county in the state that extends from Georgia on the north to the Gulf coast on the south. Its shape on the map earned it the nickname the Keystone County.
The county seat, Monticello, lies 25 miles east of Tallahassee, roughly midway between Jacksonville and Pensacola. Around 14,000 people call Jefferson County home.
Land & Water
The county covers roughly 609 square miles of farms, ranches, timberland, and wild places. Three rivers cross it: the spring-fed Wacissa, the dark and swift Aucilla, and the St. Marks. Lake Miccosukee, at 6,200 acres, spreads along the northwest corner. At the coast, the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge protects nearly 9,000 acres of federally managed land and several miles of Gulf shoreline.
The climate brings four distinct seasons: a mean annual temperature of 67°F, January averages near 51°F, July averages near 81°F, and about 57 inches of rain a year, with an explosion of color each spring.
A Deep History
People have lived along the Aucilla for more than 10,000 years. Spanish missions dotted the area in the 1600s; cotton plantations followed in the territorial era; and by 1882 the county’s farmers had turned to a crop that would make it famous: at one time over 80% of the watermelon seed sold in the nation was produced and processed here. The 1890 Perkins Opera House, the 1910 courthouse designed after Jefferson’s Monticello, and a 27-block historic district with 42 nineteenth-century buildings still anchor the county seat.
Read more about our history & culture →
Community Life
Jefferson County offers public and private schools, the R.J. Bailar Public Library (established 1904), churches of many denominations, and healthcare through local providers and the county Health Department, with three major hospitals within 30 miles. Interstate 10 and five U.S. highways cross the county, with commercial air service 35 miles away in Tallahassee.
The county celebrates itself every June at the Watermelon Festival: established 1949 and celebrating its 75th year in 2026.
