St. Francis was once a thriving pioneer town on the west bank of the St. Johns River just north of Crow’s Bluff, and was originally known as "Old Town.” Founded in 1887, St. Francis was a river town that served the steam boat traffic on the St. Johns River in 1888. They had a post office from March 15th, 1888 to Oct. 15th 1909. When the train line came out of Jacksonville in 1886 it began taking the business from the steamboats. Steamboats worked their way from Jacksonville upriver along the St. Johns to Sanford. Here they would stop to exchange household goods for citrus and timber. The town faded away after river traffic vanished in the wake of railroads for commerce. In its heyday, the town supported a weekly newspaper, "The Florida Facts", a post office, a general store, a hotel, a warehouse with roomy wharves, a sanitarium and health resort, numerous residences, and several hundred acres of citrus trees. Residents of the area brought logs and citrus by ox-drawn wagons to St. Francis for shipping on the river. Steamboats brought goods and supplies for settlements throughout north Lake County. They once transported lots of oranges and other citrus fruits. It eventually became a ghost town, then slowly the abandoned buildings disappeared and now it’s just a memory.