The City of Longwood and Lyman High School Band Program present the 2nd Annual Longwood Jazz Festival featuring Indian Trails Middle School, Milwee Middle School, Rock Lake Middle School, South Seminole Academy, Lake Mary High School, Lyman High School, and the SCPS All-Star Bane Director Jazz Bands on April 22, 2022, from 10a – 3p at Reiter Park, 311 W Warren Avenue.
Longwood has been a destination point for Florida travelers since coastal tribes used The Senator, an ancient bald cypress, to find their way overland from the St. Johns River to trading grounds at Spring Hammock. This was what the wilderness sanctuary early tribes found when they escaped inland from the Spanish. Later, when Creeks and others from the tribes of the Southeast United States fled into Spanish Florida and settled new villages among escaped African slaves, they became the Seminoles. The word “Seminole” is adopted from Spanish and Creek terms for people who live away from others. The Senator, at more than 3000 years old, is easily Central Florida’s oldest tourist attraction and can still be seen today at Big Tree Park in Seminole County’s Spring Hammock Preserve near Longwood.