Robert Orval and Emma (Demoss) Hicks, Tennessee farmers, married in 1888 and established a successful steamboat business carrying fruit and vegetables down the Withlacoochee River just east of Inverness. After a freeze in 1894/95 killed the citrus groves, Robert Hicks sold his boat and used the proceeds to build this house in 1899/1900. He designed the octagonal house to conserve space, provide the cooling effect of other Cracker-type houses with central corridors, and better withstand hurricanes with its eight-sided roof, and he added a picket fence to keep out livestock. Their oldest child, Eva, became the first and only graduate of Citrus High in 1908 and later served as a World War Two Army nurse; the other children were Agnes, Tommie, and Robert Flint. In 1930 Robert Flint married Bessie (Delaney) Hicks, a schoolteacher from Ohio, and soon returned to Florida to help his ailing father operate the family groves. The grove at Hick's Point near Gospel Island bridge remained in Hicks family operation until its sale in 2003. After Robert O. Hicks died, Eva lived out her life in the house, and Robert Flint and Bessie raised their daughter Barbara and son Lynn there. Bessie, known as Miss Bessie, taught school in Citrus County for twenty-two years and lived in the house until it was purchased by the Chamber of Commerce in 2005.