Liberty County was
established in 1855 from lands contained within the Forbes Grant, a Spanish land grant.
The county seat has variously been known as Ricoe’s Bluff, Riddeysville, and Bristol.
For most of its history the county seems to have been relatively underpopulated and
inactive, and a great deal of it is contained within the boundaries of the Apalachicola
National Forest. Longtime County Judge E. E. Callaway once theorized that this area was
the actual site of the biblical Garden of Eden; among his criteria were the presence of
four large rivers coming together and the Torreya or "stinking cedar," a tree
found only here and considered by Callaway to be the "gopher wood" of
Noah’s ark.  The present Liberty County Courthouse, designed by architect Jack Culpepper, dates from 1940. |
Updated 10/17/03