Wekiva or Wekiwa, springs spell cool relief in summer
The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson left us beloved novels including “Treasure Island,” and also a much-quoted line about our nation’s place names. “There is no part of the world where nomenclature is so rich, humorous, and picturesque as the United States of America,” Stevenson wrote in 1892 during travels in the U.S.
In Central Florida, many place names are rich not only in origin but in mysteries including their spelling. Perhaps the local champs of confusion are Wekiva, with a “V,” and Wekiwa, with a “W.”
Wekiva vs. Wekiwa
Former Sentinel columnist Jim Robison once tried to unscramble the tangle and in the process cited plenty of examples. We have “Wekiva Cove Road, Wekiva Ridge Road, Wekiva Pines Boulevard and just plain Wekiva Road,” he wrote, as well as Wekiwa Drive and Wekiwa Oaks Drive.
Legends have traced the words back to the Seminoles. “The story goes that Wekiwa was a tribal word for spring, or boiling water,” Robison noted, “and Wekiva meant stream, or running or flowing water.”
But some scholars didn’t buy that, Robison added. Seminole County historian Arthur Francke Jr. wrote, for example, that these languages didn’t have a “V” sound, only a “W.”
Francke’s theory suggests the spelling should be Wekiwa, Robison noted. Might “Wekiva” be “just another developer-coined spelling that caught on”? But the river, one of Central Florida’s glorious natural features, keeps its “V”; look it up, and you’ll find the Wekiva River along with Wekiwa Springs State Park and its “W.”
Those springs have been keeping Central Floridians cool in summer since the days when Stevenson was traveling the country and commenting on America’s colorful place names in the 1890s.
Back to Clay Springs
Back then, what we now call Wekiwa Springs was known as Clay Springs, a name that goes back before the Civil War and to one L.H. Clay, who homesteaded land nearby in the mid-1840s.
An 1847 U.S. survey of the area refers to “Clay’s improvements” at what’s now Wekiwa Springs, according to the late University of Central Florida historian Jerrell H. Shofner in his 1982 book “History of Apopka and Northwest Orange County, Florida.”
L.H. Clay was still on the land in 1850, according to U.S. census records, but he doesn’t show up in later county tax records, Shofner wrote. If Clay left the area, though, the settlement named for him hung on.
Shortly after the Civil War, Clay Springs had a wharf, warehouse and several houses. By 1870, the settlement sought to challenge Apopka for political leadership of northwest Orange County. That year, Orange (which then included present-day Seminole County) built a road that connected the wharf at Clay Springs to routes that reached Orlando, Apopka and the St. Johns River.
In the 1870s, developer Henry Sanford opened a Clay Springs store that was a branch of his business in the city that bore his name. His goal was to trade with cotton farmers and citrus growers in the Clay Springs and Apopka areas.
In the 1880s, an Iowa newspaperman named J.D. Smith bought land less than a mile from Clay Springs and laid out a new town named Sulphur Springs. Smith built a resort hotel he called the Tonyawaha, supposedly meaning “healing waters.”
The new name just didn’t take hold, and the area continued to be called Clay Springs into the early years of the 20th century. The springs also continued to be popular site for picnics and day trips for Central Floridians who dipped into its chilly waters.
‘Magical Springs’
My friend Rick Kilby will speak about springs and their role in our history in a talk titled “The Magical Springs of Old Florida.” It’s set for Aug. 20 at 6:30 p.m. at the quarterly meeting of the Seminole County Historical Society. The address is 250 West County Home Road, Sanford, and the program is free and open to the public. For details, contact Seminole County Museum coordinator Bennett Lloyd at 407-665-2489 or blloyd@seminolecountyfl.gov.