David Law’s fourth grade students at South Hamilton Elementary School got a special treat on Thursday, March 22 when school board member Johnny Bullard gave them a guided walking tour of a portion of the historical district of White Springs.

Bullard’s ancestry in the town of White Springs goes back for generations and he often referenced his relatives in orations about each site of interest. The kids were all eyes and ears as Bullard explained the history behind many of the homes and buildings in town, beginning with their school, which was built in 1937. He pointed out two different shades of bricks at the front of the building.

When he asked the children if they saw a difference in the bricks, one child eagerly piped up, “One’s more weathered than the other.”

That’s when Bullard explained that the east side of the building was added on after the original school was built.

Then it was off to the west on foot along the sidewalk next to U.S. Highway 41, the main drag through town. A steady stream of semi tractor-trailers and other traffic whizzed by along the road, oftentimes making it difficult to hear Bullard as he related each historic site’s background. Folks were honking and waving as they drove by the group, causing even more (cordial) interruptions. Bullard wasn’t deterred, though, and neither were the kids, who asked question after question and seemed genuinely interested in everything their tour guide was telling them.

Many of the homes, Bullard said were built during the turn of the century in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the current owners are keeping them in immaculate shape. Bullard seemed to know each and every one of them, too. He also knew the history of the Seminole Indians who had settled in the area prior to the presence of white man.

“The legend goes,” Bullard began. “Osceola, who was the famous Seminole chief, was sitting on the opposite bank on the Suwannee/Columbia County side from the spring. He was playing with his son down there on his chest and a white settler shot the boy off of his father’s chest with a gun. Osceola declared vengeance upon the white race and that began Florida’s first Seminole war.”

About 1905, Bullard said, White Springs was the 11th largest city in the state of Florida with Jacksonville being the largest.

“In 1911 there was a major fire in White Springs,” said Bullard. “It destroyed all the part of town that was over in that direction,” he said, pointing to the northwest. “This part of town wasn’t destroyed in that fire, but most of the town was.”

After a few more stops it was time for a break, so the group aimed for the Nature and Heritage Tourism Center, where the children were able to browse all the displays as they waited their turn to use the restrooms. Soon afterward, everyone headed over to White Sulphur Springs to see the spring house, which was probably the most exciting part of the journey. White Sulphur Springs is situated near the entrance to Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park.

Even though the spring doesn’t run now, Bullard said, “When I was coming up, the spring put out at least 22,500 gallons of water into the river a minute. It was like a first magnitude spring.”

He went on to explain that people originally came to the area because of the springs.

“They claimed that the spring had curative powers for people who had rheumatism, people who suffered from arthritis, people who suffered from depression, and people who suffered from kidney problems.”

The water, he said, contains high doses of lithium, which is used to treat people suffering from depression, “if it doesn’t shoot your kidneys before it does that,” he added.

Everyone was intrigued watching the river water rush into the spring and then disappear underground. In its heyday when the spring was running, the water used to bubble out of the spring and then flow out into the river. Hopefully, this means the Suwannee River is doing its part to help refill the Floridan Aquifer below our feet.

Of course, no tour of historic White Springs would be complete without a visit to the Adams Country Store and the Telford Hotel and Restaurant, and Bullard made certain they were on the agenda. By the time the tour was finished and everyone returned to the school, the kids, Bullard and this reporter were ready for a well-deserved lunch and some much-needed hydration.