The Willow Lawn Cemetery is an African-American burial place just west of downtown Lake Wales. It is located next door to Washington Park across Highway 27, on Washington Avenue near Florida's Natural. The Lake Wales Cemetery was established in 1918 when the Lake Wales Land Company that founded the city donated 9.3 acres of land "on a pine knoll west of town" for a cemetery. Additional land was acquired in 1938, and the Lake Wales Cemetery on U.S. Highway 27 was expanded to its current 27.4 acres. Only whites could be buried there because of the segregation laws in place at the time which necessitated the creation of a place where the African-American community could bury their dead. According to a sign in the back of the Willow Lawn Cemetery, it looks like this place was used as an unofficial place of burial for the African-American community long before it became a recognized cemetery. The 10-acre Willow Lawn Cemetery on Washington Avenue was deeded to the City by a group of African-American community churches in 1941. The oldest part of the cemetery is a back field area where there is a single sign honoring all those buried unmarked in the field before 1941. It is likely that the graves here had wood markers that decomposed over time. Another section of the cemetery contains graves from the 20's and 30's but records were not kept until the 40's and 50's. The earliest people buried here would have come to the area to work in the turpentine industry. The hard work and exploitive practices of the turpentine industry and lumber industry were documented by Zora Neale Hurston in her famous work, Of Mule and Men. Later African-Americans found work in the railroad and citrus industries. In 1921 the Lake Wales Land Company subdivided a new plat just north of town on the other side of the railroad tracks for the African-American community known informally as "the Quarters." Many of the citrus packing houses were built in the surrounding areas which the community worked at. Interestingly this hallowed historic land is still used as a cemetery today. As such it is well maintained. The Willow Lawn Cemetery holds the history of the African-American pioneers who built Lake Wales. More can be leaned about the early settlers and history of the cemetery from the Lake Wales Historical Society. read more

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