The History of Seminole County

The First Peoples

The far southeastern tip of Seminole County holds sites left by people who lived there before Columbus. Rollins College students have dug at shell mounds in a swampy, out-of-the-way part of the Charles H. Bronson State Forest. One of them is the Stipkovits-DiCecco shell mound. Mounds like these are places where some of the area's earliest people threw away food scraps and snail and clam shells.

A photo caption in the college's story describes the finds as coming from a Native American site 5,000 years old. The students also dug up animal bones, spear points and broken pottery. Zack Gilmore, an assistant professor of anthropology at Rollins, says the people who left them were likely ancestors of the Timucua, who were living in the area when the Spanish arrived.

A marker on the Sanford RiverWalk, across from Fort Mellon Park, tells the story of Sanford's first residents. The marker says the Timucua had begun to vanish by the 1700s, worn down by war and disease. By its account, the Spanish took the last of the Timucua to Cuba in 1763. It adds that the Seminole people came to the area in the 1700s, moving down from Georgia and Alabama. A history of the county by Ira T. Sprinkle says the Seminole people once used the area as a campground.

Sources: Rollins College: Cool Class: Archaeological Field School; Historical Marker Database: Sanford's First Residents (marker erected by the City of Sanford); Florida Memory: History of Seminole County, by Ira T. Sprinkle

Mellonville and the Steamboats

In 1842, Daniel Stewart founded the town of Mellonville nearby. Sprinkle's history says boats began running between Palatka and Mellonville in 1844. When Orange County was set up in 1845, Mellonville became its county seat. The new county was the old Mosquito County under a new name, given the year Florida became a state.

Sanford lies on Lake Monroe's south shore, at the head of navigation for the St. Johns River. When commercial steamboats began running, the town became a supply point for goods that Central Florida needed in order to grow. In 1866, the boat Darlington began making weekly runs between Jacksonville and Mellonville. By 1870, Mellonville was a busy town with its own business district.

Sources: University of Central Florida RICHES: Sanford Collection; Florida Memory: History of Seminole County, by Ira T. Sprinkle; City of Sanford: History and Historic Preservation; University of Central Florida RICHES: Seminole County Collection; WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando: The lost cemetery of Sanford. Where is it and who is buried there?

The Railroad and New Towns

Andrew Aulin became postmaster of the Lake Jesup Settlement in 1879. He chose the name Oviedo, after a city in Spain, because he wanted a name that showed Florida's Spanish roots. In 1880, Henry Sanford set up a company in London to deal in land and draw investors to the new town. Work on the South Florida Railroad started that same year, with its end point in Sanford. The first passenger train ran between Sanford and Longwood on June 26, 1880.

The first settlers of European descent reached what is now Longwood in the early 1870s. Its founding settlers were Edward Warren Henck, from Boston, and John Neill Searcy, from Tennessee. Henck, a railroad businessman, worked to bring the South Florida Railroad's line to Longwood. He was elected Longwood's first mayor in 1885.

By 1884, Sanford had grown into a well-off town with a big hotel, a train station and wharves. In September 1887, a fire started in a bakery on First Street. The flames spread quickly across the wooden buildings on the town's east side until the volunteer fire department stopped them. The town was rebuilt in brick.

Sources: WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando: The Lawton House: A window into Oviedo's past; City of Sanford: History and Historic Preservation; Florida Memory: History of Seminole County, by Ira T. Sprinkle; University of Central Florida RICHES: Longwood Collection

The Big Freeze and the Celery City

The winter of 1894-95 badly damaged the citrus business. Freezing weather destroyed that year's entire crop. A University of Central Florida history says the freeze that damaged the area's groves came on December 26, 1894. Sprinkle's county history gives the date as December 31, 1894. In Sanford, the number of people fell from 5,000 to 2,000 as growers left their groves.

Those who stayed tapped artesian wells and built a sub-irrigation system that made farming for market possible. Grower I. H. Terwilliger, who stayed on after the freezes, is believed to be the first person to grow celery in Sanford, in 1896. In 1897, two growers named Whitner planted three-quarters of an acre with celery brought from Kalamazoo, Michigan. By 1898, Sanford was known for celery.

The city says that in the first ten years of the 1900s, Sanford was among the country's biggest shipping points for vegetables. Celery was its most successful crop, and the town was nicknamed the Celery City. Ice from local ice houses kept the celery cold in railroad boxcars. Oviedo, too, was once known as the Celery Capital of the World.

Sources: City of Sanford: History and Historic Preservation; University of Central Florida RICHES: Origins of the Celery City, Celery; Florida Memory: History of Seminole County, by Ira T. Sprinkle; WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando: The Lawton House: A window into Oviedo's past

New Cities and the Big Tree

In 1923, Longwood changed from a town to a city. Oviedo became an incorporated city in 1925.

A giant bald cypress known as The Senator once stood 165 feet tall. A hurricane in 1925 took about 45 feet off its top. The tree was named for M.O. Overstreet, a Florida state senator. Seminole County says The Senator was about 3,500 years old.

Overstreet gave the land around it to Seminole County, and it became Big Tree Park. Calvin Coolidge came to dedicate the park in 1929. A second old cypress, Lady Liberty, grows 40 feet from where The Senator stood. The county puts its age at about 2,000 years. The park is part of the Spring Hammock Preserve, along with Soldiers Creek Park and a piece of the Cross Seminole Trail.

Sources: University of Central Florida RICHES: Longwood Collection; WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando: 1925-2025: Here's when, how Oviedo will celebrate 100 years; NPR (on WUTC): One Of World's Oldest Cypress Trees, 'The Senator,' Burns In Florida; Seminole County Government: Big Tree Park; University of Central Florida RICHES: Lady Liberty Historic Marker; Seminole County Government: Spring Hammock Preserve

Since 1990: Jackie Robinson Day, The Senator's Clone and a New Liberty Tree

Sanford made a public apology in 1997 for what had happened to Robinson. The city named April 15, 1997, Jackie Robinson Day, 50 years after his first major league game. The Goldsboro Museum opened in 2011 on the site of Goldsboro's original post office. On June 1, 2012, the part of 13th Street that served as Goldsboro's business district took the name Historic Goldsboro Boulevard. Lake Avenue became William Clark Avenue on February 28, 2013.

Fire destroyed The Senator on January 16, 2012. The county has since built a memorial with signs along a renovated boardwalk. A clone of the tree was planted near the park's playground. The clone is called The Phoenix.

In April 2025, Oviedo held a celebration for its 100th birthday as a city. The party had a 1970s carnival theme and a Walk Through Time that showed the city's history. On July 8, 2026, Seminole County hosted a ceremony at Five Points in Sanford to plant a new Liberty Tree. The ceremony marked 250 years since the Declaration of Independence was first read in public.

Sources: Spectrum News Bay News 9: Black History: Jackie Robinson's legacy lives on in Sanford; Florida Department of State: Secretary Byrd Honors Historic Goldsboro Main Street; University of Central Florida RICHES: Lady Liberty Historic Marker; Seminole County Government: Big Tree Park; WFTV Channel 9: City of Oviedo celebrates 100 years; WFTV Channel 9: Liberty Tree planted at Five Points to commemorate Declaration anniversary