A world unto itself, it was a village deep in the Suwannee River swamps and wilderness of Levy County … “ “It was a special town,” Moore later wrote of Rosewood. Moore stayed for hours, Fuji said, and told them what he had learned.

But he invited Moore to come in and look around. He hiked miles through tangled marshes and found tracks from the abandoned railroad.Īnd, of course, he knocked on the door of the only house around, which sat off the south edge of State Road 24.įuji’s husband, Doyal Scoggins, knew nothing of his home’s heritage, or previous owners. Moore spent months tracking down survivors, finding newspaper clippings, dredging up deeds. But soon people started wondering, whispering: Had he heard about what happened here? Petersburg Times reporter Gary Moore drove up to Cedar Key, searching for a story. “So much sadness.”īut if you beg her, she will tell you what she knows.

She doesn’t really like to talk about Rosewood, either. “Everyone is always nice.” Except that one time, her son-in-law reminds her. “I know everyone here,” says Fuji, who was born in Japan. And she waited tables at seafood restaurants in the tiny downtown, nine miles away. On weekends, he sold honey to travelers heading into Cedar Key. They had moved in during the winter of 1978 left her grown children a two-hour drive away. Let’s keep our house in Ozona.” But he refused. “Please,” Fuji kept begging her husband, “let this place be for vacations. Plus, the home was too big for just the two of them. The only neighbors were the hogs, deer and turkeys her husband loved to hunt. It was too far out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dense woods of palms and palmettos and cypress swamp. The second says, “This is a property that should be preserved and the historical significance should never be forgotten.” The first listing describes a place “surrounded by majestic oaks, pecan trees, fruit trees.” They wrote two separate listings: one for those who might want a big, old home with lots of land the other for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Her daughter and son-in-law are the Realtors. On a hot, humid afternoon, she sinks into a red rocker on her screened porch, tired from sweeping cobwebs, trying to get the place ready to show. “Then, all of a sudden, we had TV crews and people from all over jumping the fence.” “Not until that reporter came around,” says Fuji.

They had no idea that their house was the only remnant of Rosewood, Fla.

Horses of Fire by A.D. Rhine