CONANT

NAME: Conant
COUNTY: Lake
ROADS: 2WD
GRID: 3
CLIMATE: Hot in summer, moderate the rest of the year
BEST TIME TO VISIT: anytime 		COMMENTS: Former town site is now part of the Lady Lake area. Visit the Lady Lake Historical Society Museum on SR 441 for more information.
REMAINS: None from original town
Conant was established in 1884 by wealthy Englishmen and was named for Major Sherman Conant, a financier of the Florida Southern Railroad. It stretched from what is now Lady Lake to north of the Marion County Line. The town included a luxurious three-story hotel catering to the area's upper class. Given the rugged frontier, Conant swiftly gained a prominent reputation in the area for its pretentiousness. "It is the only town that made a practice of snobbery, for the usual spirit of the communities in Lake County was comradeship, helpfulness and hospitality," according to "The History of Lake County, Florida," by William T. Kennedy. Conant's residents snubbed those who toiled in orange groves, ostracizing the pioneers and laborers who sent their children to public schools. By 1919, Conant was merely an unpleasant memory. The Big Freezes of 1894 and 1895 descended on the community, repaying Conant's cold residents with frozen crops and wildfires, forcing them to relocate to other towns, or return to "civilization" and high society. What is known as Griffin Road today was called Conant Road until the 1950s, the only small reminder of those who had lived there before. Submitted by: Jim Pike

1884, Post Office on the left, Conant Hotel on the right --courtesy of the Florida Archives


Courtesy Jim Pike

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