Rye was once a thriving settlement along the Manatee River named after Erasmus Rye, who moved to the area in the mid-1840s from Hanover County, Virginia. In 1861, Erasmus married Mary Lucebia Williams, whose family owned the largest homestead in the area. In 1862, Erasmus joined the Confederate Army, interrupting their plans to homestead in nearby Oak Knoll, and Mary returned to live with her parents, remaining in the area while their daughter Mollie was born. In 1863, Erasmus was taken prisoner of war by the Union Army after the Battle of Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, and two years later, after the war ended, he was freed in a prisoner exchange in New Orleans and returned to his wife's family homestead along the Manatee River. In 1878, Erasmus, his son William Rye, and carpenter Levi Thomas built a wood-framed Cracker-Vernacular style home beside a clear stream later known as the Rye Branch. Small logging, citrus, and turpentine industries grew around the Rye homestead, but the developing community was difficult to reach by road and relied on the Manatee River for travel and trade. For a time, Rye was the primary river crossing for residents traveling to the county seat at Pine Level in present-day DeSoto County. In 1879, the Manatee County Commission allocated $150 to build the first bridge across the Manatee River at Rye. In 1910, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredged the Manatee River, allowing steamships to reach the settlement, and the community flourished, eventually reaching a peak of 72 families with a general store, post office, sawmill, and school. As train and automobile travel became popular in the early 20th century, steamship lines serving Rye began to close, the town again became isolated, and it started to shrink. By 1929 the post office had closed and many families had moved away. In 1988, the last remaining building, the Rye family cabin, was destroyed by a suspicious fire, and today only the Rye family cemetery remains of the historic river community.