Marianna: Named for Two Daughters, Won by a Bribe

Marianna was founded in eighteen twenty-eight by a Scottish entrepreneur named Scott Beveridge, who combined the names of his two daughters, Mary and Anna, to name his new town. Jackson County itself had existed since eighteen twenty-two, but its first county seat was a rough settlement called Webbville, nine miles to the northwest. Beveridge wanted the seat moved to Marianna, so he made a practical offer to the Florida Legislature: free land, a new courthouse, a public square, and five hundred dollars in cash to fund the new local government.

The offer worked. By eighteen twenty-nine, Marianna was the county seat, and it has remained so ever since. Today it is the largest city in Jackson County and a gateway to the limestone caverns of Florida Caverns State Park.