junior college history and athletic information

central Florida community COLLEGE

Central Florida Junior College was established in 1957 as a public, comprehensive, junior, community college serving the state of Florida and, specifically, the counties of Levy, Citrus and Marion. Classes started in the fall of 1958 for a group of Three Hundred and Twenty students in temporary facilities at the Marion County Vocational School.Hampton Junior College and Central Florida Junior College merged on July 1, 1966. Opened in the fall of 1958, Hampton Community College was one of the 1st black, 2 year institutions in Florida.

The Ocala Campus was built on a Sixty acre tract of land donated by the Atlantic Realty and Investment Company and the City of Ocala. The complex is situated on State Road 200, west of downtown Ocala and east of Interstate Highway 75.

In 1974, another Sixty acre tract next to the western edge of the campus was added. In 1994, a Twenty acre site next to the southern edge of the campus was obtained from the Marion County School Board, and the Central Florida Community College Foundation, Inc., purchased a Seventeen acre tract immediately north of the campus to provide a college residence facility (College Square), and to allow for future college expansion.

The Citrus County Campus opened in the fall of 1984 at the Lecanto Joint Use Facility. A new free-standing campus opened in the fall of 1996, located on Eighty Eight acres in Lecanto in central Citrus County.

In 1995, renovation began on the empty College Park Elementary School on land next the eastern side of the campus. Later that year, the Public Service Division and Criminal Justice Institute were moved to the newly-renovated buildings in 1996, several Health and Human Services Division programs, along with college support operations, relocated to this site.

The Bronson Center in Levy County opened in January 1982 on a Twenty acre site a mile and a quarter east of Bronson on Alternate U.S. Highway 27.