Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Lake City, FL

Lake City began in 1821 as the town of Alligator, settled beside a Seminole village called Alpata Telophka - 'Alligator Village' - and it became the seat of Columbia County when the county was formed in 1832.

Local tradition says the town shed its original name because the mayor's wife refused to hang her lace curtains in a place called Alligator - the town was incorporated and renamed Lake City in 1859.

Lake City is known as 'The Gateway to Florida' because it sits at the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 10 - it is the northernmost sizable city in Florida on I-75, and US 41 and US 90 had already crossed there since 1927.

The Battle of Olustee, fought on February 20, 1864 about 15 miles east of Lake City, was the only major Civil War battle fought in Florida - a memorial to the battle was erected in downtown Lake City in 1928.

Every February since 1976, Lake City has hosted the Olustee Battle Festival, with a parade downtown and one of the largest Civil War reenactments in the Southeast at Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park.

Lake City's population was 12,329 at the 2020 census, and it is the principal city of the Lake City micropolitan area, which covers all of Columbia County.

Lake City is home to Florida Gateway College, founded as Lake City Community College, the main public college serving Columbia and surrounding counties.

In the late 1880s Lake City was briefly home to Florida Agricultural College, one of the predecessor schools that were consolidated into the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1905.

Lake City hosts the administrative offices of the Osceola National Forest, which begins just northeast of the city.

Forestry - turpentine, lumber and pulpwood - was the mainstay of Lake City's economy for much of the 20th century, alongside farming and cattle ranching in surrounding Columbia County.