Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Astor, FL

Astor is an unincorporated census-designated place in northern Lake County, on the west bank of the St. Johns River between Lake George and Lake Dexter, and it lies entirely within the boundaries of the Ocala National Forest.

The Astor area was Timucua land long before Europeans arrived; an English trading post operated there in 1763, and in 1822 Jewish immigrant Moses Elias Levy planted a sugar cane and orange plantation, while the Army built Fort Butler in 1838 to defend the river route during the Seminole Wars.

In 1874 William Backhouse Astor Jr. of New York's wealthy Astor family bought more than 12,000 acres and set out to build a town he called Manhattan, endowing it with a church, a schoolhouse, a botanical garden and a free cemetery, plus a hotel, a sawmill and his own railroad, the St. Johns and Lake Eustis Railway.

When William Astor died in 1892, the town was officially renamed Astor in his honor, after the name Manhattan never caught on.

Astor's son John Jacob Astor IV inherited and promoted the Florida town, but after he died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 the family's interest faded and its Florida holdings were sold.

The first Astor Bridge across the St. Johns was built in 1926, but by 1928 the hotel had burned down and the railroad was abandoned, leaving Astor without telephone or telegraph service for decades.

Astor calls itself the 'Jewel of the St. Johns River', and the river beside it is one of only fourteen waterways designated an American Heritage River.

Astor is laced with a canal network more than 4 miles long, giving many of its homes direct boat access to the St. Johns River.

Astor had a population of 1,759 at the 2020 census, with 784 households and 1,145 housing units - about 31.5% of the homes vacant, reflecting its many seasonal and winter visitors.

With a median age of 55.1 years, Astor today depends on tourism and is a popular base for fishing, boating and hunting in the Ocala National Forest.