Crowds poured off the train and into the town square, scattering in all different directions – some to the opera house, others to watch baseball or go to the market. Flowers and vegetables were loaded as people boarded the next train leaving town.
Waldo’s small, rural community once thrived on agriculture and tourism until train stoppages and freezes quashed the bustling town, which has been exasperated in recent years.
“After COVID, there were a bunch of people that were always saying, ‘Oh, nothing happens in Waldo, it seems like everything died off after COVID,’” said Wendy Vivas, Waldo Historical Society secretary. She met with City Manager Kim Worley to brainstorm ideas, and Worley suggested doing a sweet potato festival, inspired by the town’s agricultural roots.
To rejuvenate the community and attract visitors, the Waldo Historical Society is hosting its first annual Sweet Potato Festival and Car Display on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Waldo City Square.
It will feature food and craft vendors, a car show, face painting, a sweet potato dish contest, a video game competition and carnival games. Vendors are selling a variety of items, from jewelry and pet treats to snow cones and baked goods.
Organizers expect 40 to 50 vendors total, including Waldo residents as well as others traveling from Jacksonville and Gainesville.
Among them is Tara Crawford James, owner of Waldo’s Embassy Event Hall and her lemonade business, Your Main Squeeze. She started selling her lemonade at an Easter weekend event this year and continued traveling to festivals and events all summer.
“I just started doing it just to make some extra money, and then I ended up just falling in love with it,” said James. “It wasn't even about just selling lemonade; it was just being out, seeing people I had seen before and meeting new people.”
James’ grandchildren help her run the stand, which she calls the highlight of her work.
“They go crazy over my lemonade, which made me want to keep going,” James said.
The Waldo Masonic Lodge, a fraternal organization and charitable business chartered in 1866, will be selling pulled pork sandwiches, chips and a drink, as well as a bowl of peanuts, said 60-year member Jack Ganstine.
“Waldo has a rich history; it was settled in this area in the mid to late 1800s, with a lot of plantations,” said Ganstine, “there's a lot of history here.”
The sweet potato festival builds on Waldo’s Plant Festival last spring and is part of a continued effort to revive Waldo’s community.
Waldo’s sweet potato legacy traces back to Thomas Kelly Godbey, who founded the Waldo Nurseries in 1889. It quickly became a robust produce operation, as he created a new variety of peach, the Waldo peach, a cross between the Peento and Honey peaches. It also led to the growth of a wide range of traditional fruits, vegetables and flowers.
However, his most successful crop was Godbey’s sweet potato, which outlasted other types of sweet potato, Worley said. Godbey and his wife expanded from their small farm to ship goods all over the country by rail. His contributions were recognized by the Florida Daffodil Society in a 2009 newsletter.
For decades, Waldo thrived on agriculture and tourism thanks to train stops on the Seaboard Airline Railroad, and later Amtrak, attracting visitors and enabling vast produce exports.
Freezes and train disputes eroded Waldo’s tourism in the late 1800s through the 1900s.
Two waves of extreme cold weather from 1894 to 1895 wiped out the majority of the town’s citrus trees in the town, and Seaboard Airline Railroad withdrew 1928 amid land price disputes, said Worley.
By the late 20th century, tourism had plateaued, and the town had few newcomers. The population aged sharply – the median age increased from 35 to 62.3 from 1990 to 2020, census data shows. Waldo’s community slowly declined, becoming fragmented and unrecognizable from its earlier days.
“It was just, you know, kind of one thing after another,” said Worley. Waldo was founded due to its train stops, like most small towns, so without the train operation, it struggled significantly.
Organizers hope the sweet potato festival lures visitors back to Waldo.
“We’ll have people come through Waldo rather than just driving through, and see that there's, you know, more to the town,” said Worley, “festivals tend to do that for different places.”