Goldsboro Historical Museum

The heritage of Goldsboro is much like that of Florida’s Eatonville,( established 1887) and other African-American towns across the country. These communities began with a desire to be self- sustaing, self-governing and self-policing. A few, like Eatonville, survived. Many others were gobbled up or destroyed by larger communities threatened by their existence. Goldsboro, established 1891 as the second African-American town in Florida to become incorporated, lost its’ town charter and became a community within Sanford in 1911 when Forrest Lake, a powerful Sanford banker and state lawmaker, devised a plan to dissolve the charters of both Sanford and Goldsboro and create a new charter that would make Goldsboro a community inside of Sanford. Years later, fate caught up with Lake, when he was found guilty of unrelated embezzlement charges and sent to prison.