Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Chaires, FL

Chaires is a small unincorporated community and census-designated place in Leon County, just east of Tallahassee, that was established in the 1820s during Florida's territorial period.

Chaires is named for Green Hill Chaires, one of three brothers from Georgia who built vast cotton plantations in eastern Leon County - his holdings eventually grew to some 20,000 acres.

Chaires was reshaped by tragedy in 1839, when a raid during the Second Seminole War destroyed Green Hill Chaires' Lake Lafayette home and killed his wife and two of his children; he rebuilt further east at a plantation called Evergreen Hills.

Chaires holds a Florida first: in 1851 Green Chaires built the state's first plank road, linking the upland plantations to the Gulf Coast shipping ports of Newport and St. Marks.

Chaires became a real community hub with the arrival of Railroad Station #1 in 1857 and a post office in 1858, and by 1900 it was the commercial center of eastern Leon County with a cotton gin, packinghouse, stores, and churches.

Chaires had a population of just 308 people at the 2020 census, yet it preserves so much of its turn-of-the-century character that the Chaires Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December 2000.

Chaires is served by Chaires Elementary School, whose predecessor schools once drew boarding students from Tallahassee itself, with children riding the train home on weekends; the modern school serves around 550 students.