In the late 1880s, several farmers settled on small farms and homesteads in this area, and the families of W. Brown, J. Cannon, A. O. Espy, W. Geoffrey, and J. Gray called their small agricultural community Brownsville. By 1893, these settlers had been joined by black laborers arriving to work on Henry Flagler's new railroad, and the settlement then became known as Gifford Siding for an early settler whose homestead was several miles to the south. It would be another decade before a railroad station was built near this settler's homestead at Vero. By the 1900s, the African-American community, now known as Gifford, had a busy railroad stop, post office, school, park, and a growing population of workers in citrus, domestic services, truck farming, and lumber. Today, the Gifford Community is one of Florida's Front Porch Communities, and its citizens are active in the planning and future growth of their community.