Chaires, Florida

Chaires is an unincorporated community located just east of Tallahassee in Leon County, Florida, United States. It is located near the intersection of Chaires Cross Road and Capitola Road, northeast of Lake Lafayette and the Edwards Wildlife Area.Chaires is also home to the Chaires-Capitola Volunteer Fire Department.GeographyChaires is located at.History1830sChaires was named after one of its earliest founders, Green Hill Chaires, one of three brothers who moved to Florida and helped settle Tallahassee and the surrounding areas. Green Hill and his brothers, Benjamin and Thomas Peter, all created thriving plantations in the southeastern section of Leon County. They settled down, became wealthy planters and were influential, to varying degrees, on the politics of North Florida. Although the plantations are gone, their legacies still exist today in the names, families, pride and history of the area that is now known as Chaires.Green Hill originally built a cotton plantation on the edge of Lake Lafayette, Florida. There he began to develop into a wealthy and, therefore, influential Southern planter. In 1838, however, an Indian raid left several of his family members, including his wife, dead and his home burned to the ground. To rebuild, Green Hill moved further east. He built a new plantation, called Evergreen Hills, in the area that is currently known as Chaires. It was so named because Green Hill owned all of this land until he gave certain tracts of it to the building of the railroad and his descendants.