Most of Gotha was built recently: 0.0% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1990. Its Register listing is the Palm Cottage Gardens. Below: maps from 1956 on.
Founding year: the first Gotha post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Gotha’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Gotha is more historic than 31% of U.S. towns. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Gotha’s overall grade.
Few Florida towns list much on the Register (a typical Florida town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Gotha’s 17.8 sits above most of its state (87% of Florida towns have fewer) while its 2 historic buildings outnumber those of 60% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to B. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±3.1 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Gotha’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
A post office opened at Gotha in 1883. The town of Gotha was founded in 1885 by German immigrant H. A. Hempel. Hempel Avenue, the "main street" of Gotha, is named in his honor. After buying 1000 acres, the majority of acreage still designated as United States Territory, he laid out a town and named it after his birthplace of Gotha, Germany. He then mailed promotional pamphlets to northern cities and to Europe advertising the warm climate and mild winters.
In time, several German American families moved to and settled in and around Gotha. It is home to Nehrling Gardens, developed by horticulturist Henry Nehrling.
The Gotha post office opened in 1883, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Gotha rank for history?
Gotha is more historic than 31% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Gotha?
One place: the Palm Cottage Gardens (listed 2000).
How old are the homes in Gotha?
0.0% of Gotha’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±3.1 points), against a typical 0.6% for a Florida town; the median home was built in 1990.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
