HISTORY OF PASCO COUNTY

Richland

Thomas R. Tucker (1798-1865) and Sarah Tucker (1788-1855) settled in Pasco County around 1842. He planted what is said to be the county’s first orange grove in 1845. The earliest marker at the Tucker Cemetery in Richland is that of Sarah Tucker.

On May 11, 1870, the Florida Peninsular reported, “Mr. E. Bettman and Capt. F. Worth have opened a store at Tuckertown, in Hernando County.”

On Oct. 5, 1876, a post office was established at Tuckertown.

On July 17, 1886, the post office was renamed Richland.

On July 23, 1896, the Tampa Weekly Tribune reported that Thomas Green of Richland was killed by George Wilder for abusing Wilder’s wife. The shooting took place on the Polk-Pasco line.

On Aug. 29, 1909, the Tampa Tribune (unseen) reported that five members of the Tucker family, all living near Richland, have been arrested on charges of cattle stealing. The men were Elliott, Fulton, Velpo, Elmore, and Austin. Theft of cattle had been occurring for several years in Polk, Hillsborough, and Pasco counties.

History of Richland

The following article is taken from the Richland School 1954 yearbook, provided by Jeff Cannon.

Richland Community, when first settled, was known as “Tuckertown” in the early 1800’s.

Among the Pioneer settlers were Mrs. Redding who came here when she was eight years old with her parents Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Pederick, in Oct. 1884.

With their arrival here the Community consisted of eight white families - they were the Tuckers, from which the community took the name “Tuckertown,” the Smiths, Staffords, Roberts, McMahons, Reddings, Weavers, and the Pedericks.

Some of these original families, a few older members, are still found in the neighborhood, and other families are represented by descendants.

There was only one colored family at this time and they lived in the section now known as the Lumberton settlement. This was the Andy Richardson family, whose descendants still live here.

Uncle Andy passed away in the early 1920’s at the ripe old age of 110 years old.

It was through the memory of the little eight year old Pederick girl that we have the history of our community. This little girl grew up and married W. M. Redding, son of another pioneer family, Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Redding.

It was he, W. M. Redding, who built the first line through this section for the Western Union Telegraph Company, running from Lake City to Punta Rassa, where it connected a cable line to Key West and Cuba.

A telegraph office was opened in “Tuckertown” which was probably the first in the country.

Mr. Pederick, father of Mrs. Redding, worked with the State Contractors, building the first Railroad through this section. And the Community was greatly thrilled when its first Train, only a “Work Train,” passed through “Tuckertown” on Sunday, April 12th, 1885.

It was then the Community began to boom. In 1892 Mr. Pederick built a large saw mill in the section where Lumberton is now located, as that is where its name came from. This mill grew until it became one of the largest in the country, and later a Turpentine Still was located here where it remained in operation until the late 1930’s.

There have been two other saw mills in the community, where a large number of people were employed. And, at this time, we still have a little mill operating on a small scale.

The name “Tuckertown” was changed to “Richland” in the early 1920’s - but Lumberton still stands.

The Western Union and depot wore the name of Richland for several years, but the railroad had to change it to “Vitis” due to the confusion in delivering Express, as other offices near were named - Richloam and Riverland - which sounded so much like “Richland.”

Of course there was a need for education for these pioneer families. The parents taught the children what little they knew, until one of the settlers, a Mr. Tucker, built a little Log Cabin school room for the community children.

Mr. Tucker hired a teacher whom he boarded at his home, and he used a horse and wagon to gather up all the children, and he and the teacher would transport them to and from school each morning and night.

Later on a larger school was built, near a large Oak tree, which was west of the Richland Baptist Church, the old church which was built in 1855. We have a new one at this writing, same lot.

In 1915 a still larger and better school of brick was built and there are two teachers for several years.

Then still later, as the community kept growing, the school building needed repairing so during the W. P. A. times the building was wrecked and the nice two teacher schoolhouse which we now have was built. It has a large auditorium, a library, also a nice lunch room, which the women of the entire Community who were members of the clubs, came forward and furnished inside.

We were at a standstill for a few years, but for the past several years, the community has been growing by leaps and bounds again.

We have three little white churches and three colored churches.

Besides our school here we have two buses that transport the high school children into town to school. We plan to build our school up again so that we may have another teacher in our nice building.

The women are still meeting once each month for a Home Demonstration meeting, and we have had an active club, under various names, since 1925.

We also have a very nice group of 4-H girls, and our charter members came from our local school, and was organized April 5th, 1950.

We have two or three girls to attend 4-H Camp each year, and last year we had two to go to 4-H short course in Tallahassee. This year we also have one for short course.

We still have one store, where we can buy all kinds of groceries, meats, milk, cold drinks and ice cream.

We receive our mail daily over regular mail route deliveries - one Rural and one Star Route.

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