Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Taft Taft, FL

Taft is an unincorporated census-designated place in southern Orange County, Florida, about eight miles south of downtown Orlando, in the Orlando-Kissimmee metropolitan area.

Taft is named for President William Howard Taft — although local legend claims he stopped in the area, Orange County historians say he never did.

The community began in 1884, when Lester Newelton arrived during Florida's citrus rush and named the settlement after himself; it was later known as Big Cypress and then Smithville before taking the name Taft.

Taft was once an incorporated town: it incorporated in 1912, and in its heyday it had a mayor, a motorcycle policeman, a jail, a post office and electric lights.

Hard times during the Great Depression led Taft to give up its municipal charter on August 1, 1933, and it has remained unincorporated ever since.

Turpentine, lumber and farming drove Taft's early economy, and in 1913 residents formed the Taft Drainage District to fight the area's chronic flooding.

After World War II, Taft reinvented itself as an industrial hub — UPS, FedEx and ABC Liquors built distribution operations there, and CSX expanded its rail presence.

Taft's population was 2,221 at the 2020 census, almost unchanged from 2,205 in 2010, packed into just about one square mile of land.

The 2000 census counted 678 households in Taft, and households there remain large by Florida standards, averaging about three people per home.

The Taft Community Center hosts the local historical society, and the community still carries on its historic volunteer fire department tradition.