In 2008, one hundred years after the founding of Ruskin, Hillsborough Community College opened its fifth campus here, bringing higher education back to a region, in a town whose very existence was predicated on the establishment of a college. A few years later, in 2013, Dr. Arthur "Mac" Miller, a retired college professor and grandson of the founder of the town of Ruskin, approached Hillsborough Community College with the idea of starting a project to formally document and preserve local history and to make it available to the public.

After careful consideration of the idea, the leadership at the SouthShore Campus of Hillsborough Community College made the decision to move forward with the project and to expand it to the local histories of all the communities in our service area. The initiative was named the Southern Hillsborough County Historical Connections Project and was tasked with the documentation of the local histories of the towns south of the Alafia River.