Crystal River is a booming, hustling, get there and keep it going town. The town hasn’t been born a very long time ago, but it is a prodigy which likely proclaims “I’m here, I’m big, I’m still growing and the rest of the world had better not forget it.”
     At the west there is the great water highway, Gulf of Mexico, of which the river Crystal River is one of its safest and most delightful harbors. At the east ? the high salubius piney lands from and towards the north comes and goes the busy traffic to and from the outside world. At the south, well, at the south, is Homosassa.
     Mills taken collectively, we have three, not one or two horse affairs, but mills that count their employees by the hundreds, and mills that have railroads of their own, besides all negotiations are complete for another to be put in, operating as soon as the workmen can put up the buildings.
     Of mercantile houses, there are seven large ones and some smaller ones. There are two well stocked drug stores and two first class physicians for the ailing. Several large new store rooms are built and in the process of being shelved and otherwise made ready for business.
There are of course the other smaller businesses; the ice cream and cool drink parlors; book and magazine agencies, barbers, cleaners, etc.
     There is also the extensive ice factory with its delivery wagons, the dairy wagon, who brings the  product of the dairy, to our doors, the country produce men and other minor factories for the comfort of the people.
     The fish and oyster business is one of the pioneer industries, natural to the proximity of the river and gulf waters. We also need a laundry, a bakery and a dentist.
     Hotels we have to suit the most fastidious, of the ones to whom money is a matter of the future, as far as  plentifullness is concerned.
    Of churches, there are the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Methodists and the Christians. As to school; there is the graded high school in town, plus nearly every district has also its school. The colored people too, have their schools and churches.
     Of the outstanding country, are the great turpentine plants and the farmers and the ranchers. We would like to induce some thrifty German farmers to come and settle among us. Our own people are so accustomed to an easy, happy, quirky way of an existence that they are not so quick to see the many undeveloped resources lying about them. 
     There are still great tracks of land needing to be farmed on the intensified system. A system that southern blood is heir to, besides, new people bring new ideas, new brawn and muscle and new life in general. There is work for all. There is money for all. There is a hearty welcome for all.   
     In 1900 Crystal River was the site of a thriving cedar harvesting industry including a mill that manufactured pencil slats for the Dixon Pencil Company.

Source: Crystal River News: 8-18-1905; 1900 Federal Census