When Elvis Came to Town

In the summer of 1961, Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll,” came to Citrus County. He was filming one of his earlier movies, Follow That Dream, based on the novel Pioneer Go Home by Richard Powell. The movie follows a family of drifters who come to Florida and break down alongside a newly built highway. The family decides to “homestead” the area and set up camp. Of course, hijinks, romance, and singing ensues.

The climatic ending finds the family on trial in none other than the now Historic Citrus County Courthouse! If you watch the movie’s final scenes, the second-floor courtroom looks exactly like it does today, and there’s a good reason for that. Since no historical photographs survived of the original 1912 interior, architects and engineers restoring it in the 1990s had to rely on scenes and stills from the movie production, which was provided by MGM studios. So thanks to the film, the courtroom today is an accurate recreation of how it most likely looked in 1912.