Neighboring Cities: Lockhart | Maitland | South Apopka | Apopka | Ocoee | Pine Hills | Winter Park | Orlando
Eatonville is a town located in Orange County, Florida, six miles north of Orlando. It was one of the first all-black towns to be formed after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and, on August 15, 1887, was the first such town to be incorporated. Zora Neale Hurston grew up there. Every winter, Eatonville stages its annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities and the Zora Neal Hurston Library (note unusual spelling) opened in January 2004. While sources seem to disagree on the exact date and even the year of the town's incorporation, the town's own official site provides a detailed account of the process and the dates. According to that official source, the town is named after Josiah E. Eaton, one of a small group of white landowners who were willing to sell sufficient land to African Americans to create a large enough tract of land to incorporate a black town. |