Our Story:

The First Presbyterian Church of Lake City, Florida, was organized with eight members on May 30, 1856. The Lake City community was 

then known as Alligator, East Florida. A frame building was built facing Alachua Street between Nassau and St. Johns Streets, just south of the present Burger King and across from Wendy’s on SW Main Boulevard.

After the Battle of Olustee on February 20, 1864, the church was used as a hospital to care for wounded Confederate and Union soldiers. This Civil War battle is still celebrated each year in Lake City as the “Olustee Festival” and is reenacted on the original battlefield in Olustee, 10 miles east of Lake City.