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  Annie Balsley (died 1893) was a New York native and wife to John Balsley. The pair moved to Sanford in 1878 when her husband received a grant from the state of Florida for 142 acres in the area that is now on the border between modern-day Lake Mary and Sanford. They farmed citrus in groves that surrounded their impressive two-story farmhouse. By 1893, the marriage had deteriorated to the point that Annie planned to murder her husband. On September 27, 1893, Balsley walked up the stairs to the second-floor of her home where her husband was sleeping in the master bedroom. She shot him in the head while he slept and then went back downstairs, leaving the body in the bed. Two days later, she shot herself after leaving a suicide note pined to a door facing their front porch that said, "I can't stand anything anymore."

Gordon J. Barnett (1924-1976) was a native of New York City who came to Central Florida in 1924. He bought up large chunks of land in southwestern Seminole County and established a fernery business. He began to develop land along the U.S. Highway 17-92 corridor as an area he called Fern Park. He later moved to west Orange County and did the same in the area that became known as Pine Hills. Barnett served for one term in the Florida state legislature in the 1930s. His infamous claim to fame is the fight he got into with fellow employee Hibbard Casselberry in the 1930s over land speculation and dueling land development projects.

Harlan Blackburn (1919-1998) was born in Orlando, Florida. He became involved in the world of organized crime in the 1940s, making significant amounts of money during World War II selling black market goods. The undisputed kingpin of what was known as "the Cracker Mob" of Central Florida, Blackburn gained further notoriety in the 1950s and 1960s for his illegitimate business interests in many gambling schemes (particularly bolita). He was arrested several times on charges from income tax evasion to illegal gambling to drug trafficking marijuana and cocaine. One of his most infamous charges included the accusation that he arranged a hit on one of his underbosses, Clyde Lee, who had been shot just off the SR 434 exit of I-4 in the mid-1970s. 

  Forrest Lake (1868-1939) was born in Newberry, South Carolina. He moved to Sanford in 1886, and he became its mayor in 1893. He played a crucial role in helping to split the portion of northern Orange County that would become Seminole County away in April 1913. Lake served several terms in the Florida House of Representatives between 1911 and 1923. He gained infamy in the 1920s when he was found guilty of embezzling $553,000 from the Seminole County Bank that he established in 1913. After five mistrials, the courts found him guilty of five bank fraud charges in 1928. He was sentenced to a 14-year term, doing time in Raiford Prison before winning a pardon from the governor in 1939.

 Samuel McMillan (died 1882) was a native of Ohio who travelled to Sanford, Florida during Reconstruction in the 1870s. A northern carpetbagger, McMillan came to the area and bought up large tracts of land with citrus groves. He made a substantial amount of money, but he was not well liked by his southern neighbors and employees. In the fall of 1882, he made it known that it was his intention to sell his groves and leave the area. However, he disappeared on September 30, 1882. The last person to see him alive was one a perspective buyer for his properties, an Englishman named Archie Newton. Three weeks later, McMillan's body was found submerged in Crystal Lake. The body had been tied down with a rope that was weighted with a burlap sack filled with an iron pot full of nails. The coroner declared he had died from a gunshot to the head. Newton was arrested but later acquitted of the charges for lack of evidence. To this day, McMillan's murder remains unsolved.

  Lewis Powell (1844-1865) was born in Randolph County, Alabama. He fought on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. After the Union won victory in April 1865, Powell became involved in the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Powell was charged with entering the home of Secretary of State William Seward and killing him as he lay in bed recuperating from a recent carriage accident. Seward's son, Frederick, refused to let Powell enter the house when the would-be assassin claimed that he had come with medicine for the secretary from his doctor. Powell pistol whipped Seward's son so violently that he fractured his head and remained in a coma for sixty days. Seward's bodyguard tried to intervene, but Powell cut the man on the forehead with a Bowie Knife. Finally making his way to Seward's bedside, he stabbed the man several times before he was pulled off. He ran away but was captured by Union Army soldiers. After a brief trial, Powell was sentenced to death and was hung on July 7, 1865. Originally buried in a grave near the site of his execution in Washington, his head was separated from his corpse until 1992 when it was discovered in the archives of the Smithsonian Institute. The skull was returned to his family who buried it in Geneva Cemetery next to the plot of his mother, Caroline Patience Powell, who had moved to the area near Oviedo with her husband after Powell's execution.