Scattered homes and a crossroads grocery mark the community, where a 1930s boom ended when the sawmill burned.
By MICHELLE JONES
Published June 27, 2003
Legend has it that Fort Lonesome was named by Dovie Stanaland, who owned one of the first stores in this remote Hillsborough community.
He reportedly thought the area lonely.
Another story is that in 1929, a two-man contingent from the Army National Guard set up a roadblock to keep a fruit fly infestation from spreading into Hillsborough County.
The worrisome flies were discovered in Orange County.
The men hung a sign and called the area Fort Lonesome.
No matter how it got its name, it's a lonely but lovely place, and pure country. The smells of fresh-cut fields and rich soil permeate the air. At Fort Lonesome's few farms and homes, folks sit on their porches, watching the sun and listening to crickets sing.
Laurie Baird owns the Fort Lonesome Grocery at State Road 674 and County Road 39 in the southeastern-most portion of the county.
"There might be 20-25 homes, all scattered about," said Baird of the population.
Baird has traveled south to Fort Lonesome from his home in Valrico for 18 years.
In the 1930s, Fort Lonesome boomed for a few years when a steam-powered sawmill was built. However, a few years later, the mill burned down and the boom ended.
Now, narrow roads stretch along rows of shiny green citrus trees, cattle wade knee-deep in lush grass and wide streams meander through dense hardwood forests and wide, marshy bends.
And phosphate - gray gold mined from the ground in and around Fort Lonesome to make fertilizer - is king.
