Chaires, FL

Chaires is a Leon County CDP east of Tallahassee, named for the Chaires brothers who settled and farmed in eastern Florida in the 1820s. Green Hill Chaires built a cotton plantation on Lake Lafayette; the plantation system, the forced removal of Native people, and the violence of the Second Seminole War are part of the place's history too. The Chaires Community Historic District records the later turn toward roads, a railroad depot, cotton shipping, and a community school. Chaires School remains a local reference point, while Chaires Cross Road and Capitola Road mark the modern map. This is a Tallahassee-edge community with a name that carries both family history and difficult memory.