Small Town Florida: Life Beyond Jacksonville's Suburbs

Penney Farms in Clay County was founded in 1922 by JCPenney department store tycoon James Cash Penney as an experimental farming village, and today remains home to a peaceful retirement community shaded by live oaks.

Founded in 1924 by a Pennsylvania developer, Keystone Heights sits on the north shore of Lake Geneva in southern Clay County and remains a hub of Florida's Lake Region, a cluster of clear, sand bottomed lakes spanning Clay, Bradford, Putnam, and Alachua counties.

Elkton sits southwest of St. Augustine, a quiet farming community that has long supplied the region's potato and cabbage crops, offering acreage and rural character just outside Jacksonville's suburban sprawl.

Starke serves as the seat of Bradford County, offering small town commerce and services for the surrounding rural communities of Northeast Florida.

Settled in 1816 along the St. Johns River, Green Cove Springs became a Victorian era tourist destination for its natural mineral springs and remains Clay County's largest city and government seat today.

Buyers drawn to towns like Keystone Heights and Penney Farms are often trading proximity to the city for larger lots, gravel lanes, and inky dark night skies, a genuinely different pace of life within an hour or so of downtown Jacksonville.

Just outside Keystone Heights, this state park draws locals and visitors for its hiking trails, sandhill lakes, and a striking ravine, a favorite outdoor spot for small town residents in this part of Clay County.

Clay County's rural towns have deep military roots, from Army buildup at Camp Blanding to the Navy's Lee Field Naval Air Training Station in Green Cove Springs during World War II.