Coleman, FL

Coleman is a Sumter County city in central Florida, with 642 residents in the 2020 census. Settlers began farming Warm Springs Hammock in 1882, after the 1894–95 freeze pushed many citrus growers elsewhere. The town’s fields shifted toward cotton, cattle, sheep, hogs, and vegetables. By 1923, cabbage buyers crowded Coleman enough for the town to carry the title ‘Cabbage Capital of the World.’ Celery, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and cauliflower joined the crop list. Those crops made the city a shipping point as well as a growing center, with the rail line carrying farm products beyond Sumter County.

ATTREbyabe / CC BY-SA 3.0

Coleman’s earlier history reaches back to Fort McClure, where Second and Eighth Infantry units searched the Lake Panasoffkee area during the Second Seminole War in 1840. The railroad reached the area in 1883, and the city took its name from Dr. B.F. Coleman. Coleman incorporated in 1908 and received its city charter in 1925. Lake Panasoffkee, parks, a community building, and the old agricultural grid still shape this small Sumter County city.