Wimauma

Wimauma is changing faster than anywhere else we cover. It was farmland and a small agricultural community, and it is becoming subdivisions at a pace that has outrun the roads.

What is here

The Little Manatee River State Park is the good one nobody outside the area knows about: real hiking, canoeing, and campsites forty minutes from Brandon. SR 674 is the main road, and the new communities off it have added thousands of homes.

The tension

Growth here is the story, and it is not a simple one. Long-time agricultural families, a large farmworker community, and new subdivision residents are all sharing infrastructure that was built for far fewer people. Road capacity and school crowding come up at every county meeting.

The name, and the city that stopped existing

Captain C.H. Davis built a railroad between Turkey Creek and Bradenton and in 1902 established a settlement at its midpoint. He named it from the first letters of his three daughters’ names: Wilma, Maude and Mary.

Wimauma was Hillsborough County’s fourth incorporated city from 1925 until the 1930s, when the local government ceased to exist. It has been unincorporated ever since. A town named after three daughters, at the midpoint of a railroad that is gone, that used to be a city and is not one now, is a better origin story than anywhere else down here has.

One thing to keep straight: Wimauma sits east of Sun City Center and south of Balm, with SR 674 running through it. Sun City Center is a separate community to the west, across US 301. The 33598 ZIP is large and reaches well north and east of the old railroad crossroads, which is why Southshore Bay and the Wimauma Healthy Living Center carry Wimauma addresses while sitting some distance from the historic town.

The mountain biking

Balm Boyette Scrub Nature Preserve has 25 miles of mountain bike trail with something for riders from novice to expert, and the entrance for it is at 15102 County Road 672, Wimauma. The preserve runs 5,723 acres in total and protects more than 800 acres of intact scrub.

Go to the right entrance. The Wimauma address on CR 672 is the biking side. Hikers want the west section, which has a two-mile trail through scrub and a Lithia address on Balm Boyette Road. And in the rainy season the county says plainly that many trails will have standing water.

Little Manatee River State Park

215 Lightfoot Road. The state calls the Little Manatee one of the most pristine blackwater rivers in southwest Florida and designates it an Outstanding Florida Water. The park protects over 2,400 acres along a six-mile stretch of it, and it is open 8 a.m. to sundown, 365 days a year, at $5 per vehicle for two to eight people, $4 for a single occupant and $2 on foot or by bike.

Check two things before you go. The 6.5-mile North Trail is temporarily closed, and has been since a notice dated November 2024. And while the launch at the River Steps is open, the ADA portion of it is not.

What is open is still a lot. The Sandpine Trail runs over two miles in three stacked loops, the Oxbow Nature Trail is a 0.8-mile loop, and there are over 15 miles of multi-use hiking and equestrian trail including Dude Lake, Mustang, Blue and Yellow, with the equestrian network concentrated in the southern half. Camping is $22 a night plus tax, a $6.70 reservation fee and a $7 nightly utility fee, across 30 standard sites, four equestrian sites with two stalls each at the horse stable, a primitive backpacking site 2.5 miles in and a group camp for up to 20. Florida residents 65 and over, or with disability documentation, get half off the base campsite fee.

The river preserve

Little Manatee River Corridor Nature Preserve covers more than 8,000 acres, about 6,500 of them a contiguous protected landscape in the upper watershed.

Use the 579 Trailhead at 2608 S. County Road 579. It has a 1.5-mile short loop and a 3.5-mile long loop, with picnic tables, and pets are allowed.

The Leonard Lee Trailhead at 2510 Leonard Lee Road, which has the canoe and kayak launch and two loops of 2.7 and 2.5 miles along the south bank, is closed until further notice for infrastructure improvements. The county points visitors to the 579 trailhead instead.

In town

Wimauma Public Library, or Biblioteca Pública de Wimauma, is at 5714 North Street, open 10 to 6 Monday through Saturday. Public computers, free WiFi, printing, scanning and faxing, and a bilingual collection of books and media. The county names it in both languages on its own page, which tells you who it is built for.

Wimauma Healthy Living Center at 16621 Lagoon Shore Boulevard runs 8 to 5 weekdays, with fitness and cooking classes, nutrition consultations, health education, diabetes prevention, cancer education, weight loss programs, walking groups and quarterly health screenings.

Southshore Bay has a Crystal Lagoons amenity of just under five acres, developed by Metro Development Group, open to residents with paid public access for day visitors who want paddleboarding and the beach.

Schools

No HCPS middle or high school carries a Wimauma address. Wimauma Elementary feeds Beth Shields Middle School in Ruskin, and Shields students go on to either Earl J. Lennard High in Ruskin, the Longhorns, or Sumner High at 10650 County Road 672 in Riverview, the Stingrays.

Sumner sits on the same CR 672 as the Balm Boyette bike entrance, and that same road is Big Bend Road by the time it reaches I-75 out at Apollo Beach. It is the spine of the whole south end of the county.

Roads and sewer

SR 674 runs east-west through Wimauma. West of town it crosses US 301 and becomes Sun City Center Boulevard, then East College Avenue in Ruskin. US 301 is the north-south highway just west of the town center, CR 579 crosses 674, CR 672 runs along the north side toward Balm and Riverview, and Lightfoot Road leads to the state park.

The project Wimauma drivers actually feel is the US 301 repaving from the Manatee County line to SR 674, running day and night through late 2026, because 301 is how you get south. A two-mile resurfacing of SR 674 east of CR 579 to Katie Stanaland Drive is in design with construction anticipated in spring 2028; FDOT labels that one Lithia rather than Wimauma because of where the segment falls.

Wimauma is the other half of the county’s $94.5 million septic-to-sewer conversion with Ruskin. Area 1, bounded on the east by Edina Street and on the west by vacant lots, Lake Wimauma and Sheffield Street, gets a new vacuum pump station between 7th Street and Hillsborough Street. Design is complete and permitting is in progress, with five construction phases planned and no schedule announced yet.

Worth stating plainly, because both facts come from the county: Ruskin’s side is already in construction with connections targeted for late 2028, and Wimauma’s is still in permitting. On the same program, Wimauma is behind.

What we cover here

Development approvals and what they do to SR 674, park and river conditions, Sumner High sports, community events, and the businesses serving this end of the county.