Florida Ghost Towns

by David Payne
(Goldenrod, Jacksonville, and south of Groveland)

Gabriella is missing.

Googling reveals that on some websites it is thought to still exist. It does not. There is a historic marker along the bike trail between Goldenrod and Oviedo. It existed in relation to the pine trees.

In fact, someone was still tapping old growth pines near my home in Goldenrod for the sap to make turpentine when I was a kid (1950s). The voting precinct on my mother's voter registration from back in the day was Precinct 8, the Gabriella precinct, so Seminole County still carried forward the name.

But it is a ghost town.