10 Oldest Cities In Florida
We scoured the internet to determine the towns and cities in Florida that have been around the longest.
Chris Kolmar, About HomeSnacks
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You might think your town is old, but it probably isn't the oldest in the country.
That is unless you live in St. Augustine, FL. Which looks pretty good for being 454 years old.
That's older than America for those playing at home.
So that got us thinking, what is the oldest city in Florida? And how old is that when you put it into perspective of St. Augustine or American Independence in 1776?
Because even if your Florida city or town is old, it isn't really all that old in the grand scheme of things. For example, the Pyramids in Egypt were built around 2600 BC, a cool 4100 years before St. Augustine.
And now that we have you thinking about how the time line of your existence is really kind of unimpressive on the timeline of history, let's drop right into the analysis.
These are the 10 oldest cities and towns in the Sunshine State according to their 'date of foundation':
St. Augustine (Photos)
Tampa (Photos)
Melbourne (Photos)
Port Orange (Photos)
Gainesville (Photos)
Ocala (Photos)
Sebastian (Photos)
Maitland (Photos)
Orlando (Photos)
Lakeland (Photos)
For being 453 years old, St. Augustine doesn't look a day over 40. And the newest city in Florida? That would be Miami Beach — a brand spanking 3 years old.
Read on for a look at the oldest places in Florida or feel free to check out the best places to live in Florida or the safest.
How We Determined When A City Was Founded In Florida… Or Is It Settled?
Surprisingly, there's not a definitive data set that contains the dates of incorporation or settlement for cities in America. Put differently, there's no official data set from the Census that contains when every place in America was founded.
So what did we do instead?
Use the internet's version of official government data — Wikipedia of course!
For the majority of cities in Florida, Wikipedia offers data on some kind of 'date of foundation' in the infobox. Unfortunately, because it's Wikipedia and not a sprawling government bureaucracy, that can take the form of any of the following nomenclature (plus others):
Chartered
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And then even more stuff — for example Atlanta has a 'Terminus' date, whatever that is.
If no 'date of foundation' was found in the infobox, we looked to the general text in the History section of the city for 'Founded in XXXX'.
All in all, we were able to collect data on 246 out of 451 in Florida with over 5,000 people. That's good for a 54.5% completion rate.
We then ranked them from oldest to newest with St. Augustine turning out to be the matriarch of Florida at the ripe old age of 453.
Here's a look at the top ten and a snippet of their history from Wikipedia.
1. St. Augustine
Founded in 1565 by the Spanish conquistador, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States. In 1562, a group of Huguenots led by Jean Ribault arrived in Spanish Florida to establish a colony in the territory claimed by Spain. They explored the mouth of the St. Johns River, calling it la Rivière de Mai (the River May), then sailed northward and established a settlement called Charlesfort at Port Royal Sound in present-day South Carolina. Spain learned of this French expedition through its spies at ports on the Atlantic coast of France. The Huguenot nobleman René de Laudonnière, who had participated in the expedition, returned to Florida in 1564 with three ships and 300 Huguenot colonists. He arrived at the mouth of the River May on June 22, 1564, sailed up it a few miles, and founded Fort Caroline.
2. Tampa
When the pioneer community living near the US Army outpost of Fort Brooke was incorporated in 1849, it was called 'Tampa Town', and the name was shortened to simply 'Tampa' in 1855. The etymology of the name is unclear. The word 'Tampa' may have meant 'sticks of fire' in the language of the Calusa, a Native American tribe that once lived south of today's Tampa Bay. This might be a reference to the many lightning strikes that the area receives during the summer months. Other historians claim the name means 'the place to gather sticks'. Toponymist George R. Stewart writes that the name was the result of a miscommunication between the Spanish and the Indians, the Indian word being 'itimpi', meaning simply 'near it'.
The first iteration of the name 'Tampa' first appears in the memoirs of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda (1575), who had spent 17 years as a Calusa captive and traveled through much of peninsular Florida. He spelled it 'Tanpa' and describes it as an important Calusa town on the west coast. While 'Tanpa' may be the basis for the modern name, archaeologist Jerald Milanich states that the Calusa village of Tanpa was on the shores of Charlotte Harbor, which is about 65 miles south of Tampa Bay. A later Spanish expedition did not notice the mouth of Charlotte Harbor while sailing north along the west coast of Florida and assumed that the current Tampa Bay was the bay they sought, thus accidentally transferring the name on Spanish navigational charts. Tampa Bay was labeled Bahía de Espíritu Santo (Bay of the Holy Spirit) in the earliest Spanish maps of Florida, but became known as Bahía Tampa (Tampa Bay) as early as 1695.
3. Melbourne
Source: Wikipedia User MicheleHaro | CC BY 3.0
Evidence for the presence of Paleo-Indians in the Melbourne area during the late Pleistocene epoch was uncovered during the 1920s. C. P. Singleton, a Harvard University zoologist, discovered the bones of a mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) on his property along Crane Creek, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from Melbourne, and brought in Amherst College paleontologist Frederick B. Loomis to excavate the skeleton. Loomis found a second elephant, with a 'large rough flint instrument' among fragments of the elephant's ribs. Loomis found in the same stratum mammoth, mastodon, horse, ground sloth, tapir, peccary, camel, and saber-tooth cat bones, all extinct in Florida since the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 years ago. At a nearby site a human rib and charcoal were found in association with Mylodon, Megalonyx, and Chlamytherium (ground sloth) teeth. A finely worked spear point found with these items may have been displaced from a later stratum. In 1925 attention shifted to the Melbourne golf course. A crushed human skull with finger, arm, and leg bones was found in association with a horse tooth. A piece of ivory that appeared to have been modified by humans was found at the bottom of the stratum containing bones. Other finds included a spear point near a mastodon bone and a turtle-back scraper and blade found with bear, camel, mastodon, horse, and tapir bones. Similar human remains, Pleistocene animals and Paleo-Indian artifacts were found in Vero Beach, 30 miles (48 km) south of Melbourne, and similar Paleo-Indian artifacts were found at Lake Helen Blazes, 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Melbourne.
After the Civil War, pioneer families arrived, and Melbourne was founded in 1867 by former slaves.[citation needed]
4. Port Orange
Source: Wikipedia User Ebyabe | GFDL
5. Gainesville
Gainesville is located at 29°39'55' North, 82°20'10' West (29.665245, 82.336097), which is roughly the same latitude as Houston, Texas. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 62.4 square miles (161.6 km2), of which 61.3 square miles (158.8 km2) is land and 1.1 square miles (2.8 km2) is water. The total area is 1.74% water.
Gainesville's tree canopy is both dense and species rich, including broadleaf evergreens, conifers, and deciduous species; the city has been recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation every year since 1982 as a 'Tree City, USA'.
6. Ocala
Source: Wikipedia User Luv24jmg | CC BY-SA 3.0
Archeological investigation has revealed that the area was inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous peoples from as early as 6500 B.C., and there were two lengthy periods of occupation. The second lasted through 500 A.D. In early historic times, the Timucua inhabited the area.[citation needed]
7. Sebastian
In 1715, several Spanish ships loaded with treasure (known as the 1715 Treasure Fleet) encountered a storm off the shores of the Treasure Coast and were lost. It is estimated that only a portion of the sunken treasure has been found. The value placed on the treasure lost from the 1715 fleet has been estimated at over $500 million USD.
8. Maitland
Maitland is one of the oldest incorporated suburban municipalities in central Florida. The area was previously inhabited by Timucuan Native Americans. The town was originally named for a nearby Lake, which honored Captain William Seton Maitland, who fought in the Second Seminole Indian War, and was slain in the battle of Wahoo Swamp. A small military outpost was built in 1838 on the western shore of Lake Fumecheliga (later Lake Maitland) during the Second Seminole War. After the Civil War, The area began to grow, and a post office opened at Lake Maitland in 1872. Around this post office, a small town grew. The area was put into extensive citrus production.
9. Orlando
Before European settlers arrived in 1536, Orlando was sparsely populated by the Seminole tribe. There are very few archaeological sites in the area today, except for the former site of Fort Gatlin along the shores of modern-day Lake Gatlin south of downtown Orlando.
After Mosquito County was divided in 1845, Fort Gatlin became the county seat of the new Orange County in 1856. It remained a rural backwater during the Civil War and suffered greatly during the Union blockade. The Reconstruction Era brought on a population explosion, resulting in the incorporation of the Town of Orlando on July 31, 1875 with 85 residents (22 voters). For a short time in 1879 the city revoked its charter, and was subsequently re-incorporated. Orlando was established as a city in 1885.
10. Lakeland
The first Paleo-Indians reached the central Florida area near the end of the last ice age, as they followed big game south. As the ice melted and sea levels rose, these Native Americans ended up staying and thrived on the peninsula for thousands of years. By the time the first Spanish conquistadors arrived, more than 250,000 Native Americans were living on the peninsula.[citation needed] Some of these first early tribes were the Tocobago, Timucua, and Calusa. In 1527, a Spanish map showed a settlement near the Rio de la Paz. The arrival of the Spanish turned out to be disastrous to these Native American tribes. Within 150 years, the majority of the pre-Columbian Native American peoples of Florida had been wiped out. Those who had not succumbed to diseases such as smallpox or yellow fever were either killed or enslaved. Little is left of these first Native Americans cultures in Polk County except for scant archaeological records, including a few personal artifacts and shell mounds. Eventually, the remnants of these tribes merged with the Creek Indians who had arrived from the north and became the Seminole Indian tribe.
Florida became a state in 1845, and Polk County was established in 1861. After the American Civil War, the county seat was established southeast of Lakeland in Bartow. While most of the early history of Polk County centered on the two cities of Bartow and Fort Meade, eventually, people entered the areas in northern Polk County and began settling in the areas which became Lakeland.
Oh How Time Flies For The Oldest Towns And Cities In Florida
So there you have it, a look at some of the oldest places to live in Florida. If we missed your city's 'date of foundation', let us know in the comments. Or feel free to take a look at the table of the oldest places in Florida.
And now, let's raise our glasses, to the next 100 years of existence for these cities and towns in the Sunshine State.
And for those wondering, here are the newest additions to Florida:
Miami Beach (Founded in 2015)
Florida City (Founded in 2015)
Lynn Haven (Founded in 2015)
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These Are The 10 Best Counties To Live In Florida
These Are The 10 Richest Cities In Florida
Detailed List Of The Oldest Cities In Florida
St. Augustine 1 453 1565
Tampa 2 169 1849
Melbourne 3 151 1867
Port Orange 4 151 1867
Gainesville 5 149 1869
Ocala 6 149 1869
Sebastian 7 148 1870
Maitland 8 146 1872
Orlando 9 143 1875
Lakeland 10 143 1875
Daytona Beach 11 142 1876
Sanford 12 141 1877
Bartow 13 136 1882
Naples 14 132 1886
Fort Myers 15 132 1886
Rockledge 16 131 1887
Zephyrhills 17 130 1888
St. Petersburg 18 126 1892
West Palm Beach 19 124 1894
Miami 20 122 1896
Fernandina Beach 21 116 1902
Fort Myers Beach 22 114 1904
Ormond Beach 23 114 1904
Thonotosassa 24 114 1904
New Smyrna Beach 25 114 1904
Pensacola 26 114 1904
Green Cove Springs 27 114 1904
Warrington 28 114 1904
Lake City 29 114 1904
Key West 30 114 1904
Milton 31 114 1904
Jacksonville 32 114 1904
Treasure Island 33 114 1904
Middleburg 34 114 1904
Tallahassee 35 114 1904
Eustis 36 114 1904
Palatka 37 114 1904
Mount Dora 38 113 1905
Jensen Beach 39 113 1905
Sebring 40 113 1905
Country Walk 41 113 1905
Holly Hill 42 113 1905
Cocoa Beach 43 113 1905
Port St. John 44 113 1905
Apollo Beach 45 113 1905
Orange City 46 113 1905
Lantana 47 113 1905
Fish Hawk 48 113 1905
Goulds 49 113 1905
Satellite Beach 50 113 1905
Oldsmar 51 113 1905
Port Salerno 52 113 1905
Pine Castle 53 113 1905
Niceville 54 113 1905
South Miami 55 113 1905
Elfers 56 113 1905
Palmetto 57 113 1905
Atlantic Beach 58 113 1905
Auburndale 59 113 1905
Englewood 60 113 1905
Tavares 61 113 1905
World Golf Village 62 113 1905
Yulee 63 113 1905
North Palm Beach 64 113 1905
Lake Mary 65 113 1905
South Daytona 66 113 1905
New Port Richey 67 113 1905
Brownsville 68 113 1905
Panama City Beach 69 113 1905
Vero Beach 70 113 1905
Lake Wales 71 113 1905
Hudson 72 113 1905
Marianna 73 113 1905
Cape Canaveral 74 113 1905
Neptune Beach 75 113 1905
Dade City 76 113 1905
Wildwood 77 113 1905
Wimauma 78 113 1905
Belle Isle 79 113 1905
Macclenny 80 113 1905
Gulf Breeze 81 113 1905
Mims 82 113 1905
Heathrow 83 113 1905
Pahokee 84 113 1905
Indiantown 85 113 1905
Fort Meade 86 113 1905
Tequesta 87 113 1905
Defuniak Springs 88 113 1905
Orlovista 89 113 1905
High Springs 90 113 1905
Okeechobee 91 113 1905
Mount Plymouth 92 113 1905
Fellsmere 93 113 1905
Newberry 94 113 1905
Lake Alfred 95 113 1905
Mascotte 96 113 1905
Floral City 97 113 1905
Live Oak 98 113 1905
Trinity 99 113 1905
Kathleen 100 113 1905
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