EATONVILLE

Eatonville, America's oldest African-American municipality, was incorporated in 1883. But it has been difficult for the historic city to remain viable under the burden of a declining tax base and routine accusations of financial mismanagement among elected officials.

Eatonville's most famous former resident is the Harlem Renaissance author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, who spent her early years in Eatonville and wrote about her childhood in books such as Their Eyes Were Watching God and Dust Tracks on a Road.

The Hurston connection has been the catalyst for the city's signature event, the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, which generally attracts more than 50,000 people on the last weekend in January. The Zora Neale Hurston Museum of Fine Arts is the organizer.

In addition, a highly rated TV movie based on Their Eyes Were Watching God, starring Halle Berry, aired last March, bringing national attention. And the city's fortuitous location between Maitland and Winter Park and its attractive land prices finally have begun to attract commercial and industrial investment.

Improving the city's aesthetics will be a streetscape program along its main thoroughfare, Kennedy Boulevard. And boosters are proud of a new Orange County branch library, which celebrates the community's heritage with a large Hurston display.