SANFORD, Fla. – Seminole County students are coming together to honor a community rooted in Central Florida. Volunteers are installing historic markers on top of the street signs in the community of Georgetown in Sanford.
Georgetown is located east of Sanford Avenue and north of Celery Avenue. Sanford’s founder sold the land to early black pioneers, who established the community in 1870.
Recommended Videos
[TRENDING: 2 killed in SR-408 crash near Semoran Boulevard in Orlando | Accused stalker arrested after 2 girls run for help, Volusia deputies say | Become a News 6 Insider (it’s free!)]
Kerry Wiggins, the district two commissioner for the city of Sanford, said the historic African American neighborhood flourished during the Jim Crow era.
“You have those who had their own barber shops, they had their own store, they had their own funeral homes, the schools,” Wiggins said.
In 2020, Georgetown was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The blocks of homes, businesses, schools, and churches laid down generations of roots. Now this history is rising to the top.
“They have been looking to get things done, preserve, get the actual attention that’s been needed within the Georgetown area,” Wiggins said.
Wiggins said volunteers with the Seminole High School Young Men of Excellence, Young Women of Excellence, and the City of Sanford’s Mayor’s Youth Council will assist city workers to install new Georgetown Historic District street sign toppers throughout the neighborhood.
The Georgetown Historic District Steering Committee organized the project with support from the Sanford Historic Trust and the City of Sanford Historic Preservation Board.
The Georgetown Historic District Steering Committee, which represents the Georgetown legacy community of families, churches and businesses, organized the project with support from the Sanford Historic Trust and the City of Sanford Historic Preservation Board.
Volunteers will go throughout the neighborhood on Saturday to install the street sign toppers.
Wiggins hopes they will spark conversations about the past and look to the future.
“Maybe that young guy, that young girl ask ‘Hey, what’s that sign topper up there? What’s it up there for?’ and it strikes up a conversation for you to be able to know the value and the worth that’s being preserved for our youth, for them to be able to get an understanding of whose shoulders we’re actually standing on that paved the way for us to be able to be in the situations that we’re in,” Wiggins said.
He adds it’s a sign that will remind the community of Georgetown’s unique history and the stories worth preserving.
“Being able to find out and knowing how this came about, all the different businesses and the schools and the churches and just the citizens that are here,” Wiggins said. “Generations after generations coming back and being able to see and really know what’s going on in Georgetown.”