coming from Jacksonville. Union forces engaged the Confederates at the Battle of Olustee on February 20, 1864, near the Olustee Station. It was the only major battle in Florida during the war. Union casualties were 1,861 men killed, wounded or missing; Confederate casualties were 946 killed, wounded or missing. The Confederate dead were buried in Lake City. In 1928 a memorial for the Battle of Olustee was established in downtown Lake City. In 1874 Lake City's first newspaper was published in 1874, called the Lake City Reporter. In 1876 the Bigelow Building was completed; it later was adapted for use as the City Hall. The first fire department was established in 1883 to complement the police department. In 1891 Lake City became the first city in Florida to have electric lights from a local power and light company. White violence rose against blacks in the late 19th century in a regionwide effort to establish and maintain white supremacy as Southern states disenfranchised most blacks and imposed Jim Crow. Whites lynched 20 African Americans in Columbia County from 1877 to 1950, mostly in the decades near the turn of the 20th century. It was tied with Polk County for the second-highest total of lynchings of any county in the state. Among these murders was the mass lynching on May 21, 1911, of six black men who were taken from the jail by a white mob in Lake City. They were being held on charges of murdering one white sawmill worker and wounding another in Leon County, after whites had attacked them at a private house following an earlier altercation between two men. A group of a dozen white men, reportedly from Tallahassee, tricked the white youth guarding the jail by posing as officials and gained release of the suspects. They took the men outside town and shot them repeatedly to death. Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.5%) is water. Osceola National Forest is partially within the county. Adjacent counties Echols County, Georgia - north Clinch County, Georgia - northeast Baker County - east Union County - southeast Alachua County - south Gilchrist County - southwest Suwannee County - west Hamilton County - northwest National protected area Osceola National Forest (part) Demographics As of the 2020 United States census, there were 69,698 people, 25,205 households, and 15,740