24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Masaryktown, FL

Masaryktown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in southern Hernando County, along U.S. Route 41 about 9 miles south of Brooksville, the county seat.

Masaryktown was founded in 1924 by Slovak and Czech settlers and named after Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia.

Of the 61 people who met to found Masaryktown, 60 were Slovak and only one was Czech, and they formed the Hernando Plantation Company, selling $1,000 shares that entitled each buyer to purchase 20 acres of land.

According to Hernando County's published history, the Hernando Plantation Company bought about 24,000 acres - 9,500 in Hernando County and 14,500 in neighboring Pasco County - at $32.50 an acre on December 1, 1924.

The Masaryk Hotel, built by the first settlers who arrived in mid-1925, opened on January 1, 1926, to house newcomers to the colony.

Masaryktown's settlers first planted orange groves, but killer frosts devastated the orchards, and the families who remained turned to chicken and egg farming - at one point their cooperative was the largest in the Southeast and Masaryktown was known as the egg capital of Florida.

The founders named Masaryktown's east-west streets after Slovak national and literary leaders - Stur, Hurban, Kollar, Stefanik, Hodza, Hviezdoslav, and Mudron - its central boulevard after Masaryk, and its north-south streets after American presidents including Wilson, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln.

Masaryktown had a population of 1,077 at the 2020 census.

Masaryktown has 437 households packed into just about one square mile.

Few Slovak families remain in Masaryktown today, and the community's median age at the 2020 census was 42.6 years.