Saturday, December 29, 2012

Rosewood, Florida


I'm going to start Lost Towns America with Rosewood.  Rosewood is located on the nature coast of Florida.  The closest significant community is Chieftain, located along U.S. 19.  Rosewood is still listed on most highway maps, and is easily found online.  Unlike most ghost towns, Rosewood was popularized by a major motion picture in the 1990s.  The community was an African-American town of approximately 200 residents when tempers flared over the rape of a white woman in a nearby community.  Residents suspected someone from Rosewood having done the crime.  An angry mob assembled and killed two Rosewood residents and burned the town to the ground.  Today, there is very little left to mark the townsite.  You can determine where many of the original streets were located, but there are no structures that date back to the town's heyday.  A church, restaurant, and a couple of other homes and trailers dot the landscape.  A marker was erected on the two-lane highway that documents the history of the town.  A marker was also erected indicating it was a stop on a railroad that no longer exists.  Anybody else have anything to add about this historic ghost town?

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