Lake Monroe is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Seminole County,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, United States. Its ZIP code is 32747. The Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway (JT&KW) completed a bridge over the

St. Johns River The St. Johns River () is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and is the most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders 12 counties. The drop in elevation from River s ...

just north of Lake Monroe in 1886. Later that year the

Orange Belt Railway The Orange Belt Railway (later known as the Sanford & St. Petersburg Railroad) was a narrow gauge railroad established in 1885 by Russian exile Peter Demens in Florida. It was one of the longest narrow gauge railroads in the United States at t ...

connected to the JT&KW near the bridge, and built a station named "Monroe Station" at the junction. Both the JT&KW and the Orange Belt continued from Monroe Station to Sanford. A real estate development called St. Joseph's Colony was platted on 640 acres near Monroe Station in 1887. The development, promoted by Henry Sanford's Florida Land and Colonization Company, was advertised to German immigrants as a Roman Catholic community, with a town lot set aside for a Catholic chapel. A German Roman Catholic priest, Felix Prosper Swenbergh, was recruited by Sanford to oversee the colony. Swembergh died of yellow fever in 1891, and the chapel was never built. While some Germans did move to the colony, the German character of the community had faded by early in the 20th century. In 1916 an automobile bridge across the St. Johns River replaced the existing ferry. A post office named "Ahearn" was opened in 1916. A community petition protesting the name chosen for the post office resulted in the name being changed to "Lake Monroe" by the end of the year.

Notes

Sources

External links

Map of St. Joseph
Unincorporated communities in Seminole County, Florida Unincorporated communities in Florida {{SeminoleCountyFL-geo-stub