Sweetwater Ranch, Florida

Sweetwater Ranch is an unincorporated community in the southeast section of Hardee County, Florida, United States.

Sweetwater is 15 minutes by car southeast of Zolfo Springs, Florida, and is bordered by U.S. 17 to the west, SR 66 to the North, and the unincorporated communities of Crewsville to the east and Fish Branch/Gardner to the South.

While the center of the community was roughly considered the Sweetwater Church of Christ, the congregation was disbanded in the early 1970s and the building demolished.

Sweetwater Ranch once had a thriving rural population whose chief occupation was farming and cattle and at one point had its own one-room school and was home to a large turpentine mill with a commissary.

Most families lived off the land, farming and harvesting domesticated animals such as beef, pork and poultry.