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Saint Joseph, commonly referred to as St. Joe, is an unincorporated community in Pasco County, Florida, United States. It was founded as a German Catholic community. It is located in the Northeastern part of Pasco County in Central Florida a few miles north of San Antonio and Saint Leo University. Nearby Dade City hosts the annual Kumquat Festival in celebration of the kumquat fruit. Saint Joseph is known as the Kumquat Capital of the World for its produce. The community is also home to Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
Contents
Map of St Joseph, Florida 33525, USA
History
St. Joseph was originally platted to be a satellite community to the Catholic colony of San Antonio in 1881 by Judge Edmund F. Dunne. Dunne was a legal counsel involved in the Disston Land Purchase, and as his commission, received 100,000 choice acres (400 km2) of land out of the 4,000,000 acre (16,000 km²) purchase. The following year, while surveying the Disston Purchase, Judge Dunne selected the location for San Antonio, settling it as the center of a haven for Catholics in Florida. Most of the original colonists were of Irish and French lineage. However within a few years numerous German immigrant families steadily moved to the area. Dunne mapped out, platted and established the villages of Saint Joseph, Saint Thomas, Villa Maria, Carmel and San Felipe, but only Saint Joseph survives today. In 1889 the Benedictines established the nearby monastery of St. Leo and St. Leo College on Dunne's former homestead and farm land, later incorporating the area as part of a separate town called St. Leo. The first Benedictine's arrival was a direct result of the colony's rapidly growing German immigrant population. Though the area for St. Leo was also platted by Dunne, it did not actually receive its name until after the arrival of the Benedictine monks.