Road signs are just that, a simple sign stuck on the side of the road. You don’t pay them much attention, thanks to the blathering GPS app on your cell phone, directing you when and where to turn. The signs are interesting if there are fresh bullet holes in them. There is always the danger that some locals may not be that accurate at target practice. You may also have a heightened awareness of the signs if you recently got caught in a speed trap and had to take the on-line course to avoid points on your license and a raise in your insurance. You learned that there are green signs and blue signs and brown signs, and why someone with a PhD in bureaucracy in a Washington, D.C. office got paid for this primary color scheme. Then there are those signs with a single secret code letter to indicate some important building ahead, as if you wouldn’t see it as you turned the corner. Finally, there are the picture signs, little circles, rectangles and lines, for those too stupid to decipher the mystery letter.

There you are, driving down Rt 419 when you see a green and white sign with the word TAINTSVILLE printed in block letters. That is supposed to mean there is a town there but all you see are open pasture and Lake Eva. You had passed one huge housing complex, gates blocking unwanted drivers from entering the community of residences stacked almost on top of each other, and will within a minute be traveling past another enclave of clones, distinguished only by names meant to be unique but failing miserably. Taintsville, however, has fettered itself into your brain.

Taintsville is one of the last vestiges of old Florida, squeezed between the two expanding cities of Oviedo and Chuluota which have lost their identities and morphed into the new Florida. Celery farms and cattle ranches were victims to widening roads, walled communities and strip malls of chain restaurants, fitness establishments and upscale boutiques. A lonely feed store hangs on, selling pet food and a few gardening supplies. Anything more is purchased via Amazon. Snow Hill Road and Old Chuluota Road feed into Rt 419. Taintsville, its zip code 32766 shared by Oviedo and Chuluota, couldn’t even boast of a speed bump, unless you counted a dead armadillo or ‘possum. Residents were reduced to giving delivery instructions as “We’re right behind the fire tower.”

Fed up with constantly proclaiming “We ‘tain’t in Chuluota and it ‘tain’t in Oviedo either!”, the thirty odd families banded together in the early 1970’s and invented the town of Taintsville. In true pioneer spirit, two professional looking signs purchased in Texas (Remember the Alamo!) were erected in the dead of the night and Taintsville was on the map. County and state officials, confused at first, quickly figured out something just wasn’t right, and the signs were removed.

The founders of Taintsville were not to be dissuaded. Floridians don’t give up. This is the state where the Seminole Tribe has yet to sign a peace treaty with the US Government. This time, using proper channels, they circulated petitions and in the shadow of the fire tower, convinced a Seminole County commissioner to push for the 700 acres to become Taintsville.

The town, emboldened by their success, elected two de facto mayors. There was even an attempt to name the unnamed dirt road Tainta Road but the county was no longer in a charitable mood and renamed it Old Chuluota Road. This rural community had to bear one last insult from the larger, encroaching towns, being officially designated as ‘The Village of Taintsville’ on county maps. Why would a simple town with its name ending in ‘ville’ need the moniker ‘The Village’ staining its identity? At least a simple green and white road sign on Rt 419 displays one word, TAINTSVILLE.

(Thanks to Jason Byrne for his article on “The Village of Taintsville,” July 31, 2017, https://medium.com/florida-history/the-village-of-taintsville-65569458c3eb)