De Leon Springs State Park centers on a large natural spring in Volusia County that has drawn people for at least 6,000 years. Dugout canoes found in the spring are among the oldest known in the Western Hemisphere. The site later included Spanish missions, the Mayaca homeland, and the Spring Garden plantation, where crops were raised with enslaved labor and a water-powered sugar mill was built. Renamed to attract tourists after the railway arrived in 1886, the spring became a resort and later a roadside attraction before preservation efforts led Florida and Volusia County to buy the land. Since opening in 1982, the park has combined recreation with evidence of its long human and natural history.