Mayo, FL

Mayo is Lafayette County's only incorporated town and its county seat, a courthouse town in north-central Florida. John B. Whitfield settled the present town in 1874, but the county government arrived after New Troy's courthouse burned on New Year's Eve 1892. Voters chose Mayo as the new seat in 1893, and the town incorporated that same year. That move put the county's offices, records, and public business on a new square and turned a small settlement into the local center.

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The present Lafayette County Courthouse, completed in 1909 in Classical Revival style, still stands on Main Street; its limestone came by rail to O'Brien and then by wagon because Lafayette County had no railroad. The old 1893-94 courthouse was moved across the street and now survives as a separate historic building. U.S. 27 is Main Street, and Lafayette High School is in town, so Mayo's daily map is compact: courthouse square, school, highway, and the rural county that reaches east to the Suwannee River. Mayo carries the whole county's civic address.