Mulberry is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,817 at the 2010 census. Mulberry is house to Badcock Home Furniture. It is portion of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area, with parts of unincorporated Lakeland on its northern boundary. Mulberry is house to the 334-acre Alafia River Reserve.

The first white settlers appeared in the Mulberry area in the 1840s. The first industry in Mulberry was logging the longleaf yellow pine which dominated the area.

The town had no endorsed name, but the railroad which came through town stopped at a mulberry tree to let off passengers and drop off the mail. The obsolescent mulberry tree became the de facto meeting place in town, and eventually gave the town its name. Several lynchings and hangings took place from this mulberry tree. In 1886, phosphate stone was discovered in the Peace River, and the dominant logging industry gave exaggeration to mining operations. The phosphate industry gave the town stability, leading to Mulberry’s inclusion in 1901. In 1910, Mulberry’s Masonic lodge was time-honored and remains in force today.

By 1919, many miners had joined the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers. In April of that year, the linkage called a strike asking for a minimum wage and an eight-hour action day, after which the mining companies brought in strikebreakers from Georgia. Electricity was cut off from both Mulberry and Fort Meade. On the evening of August 21, 1919, four mine guards for the Prairie Pebble Phosphate Company opened flame upon the town in an apparent attempt to crack the strike, claiming that a man had shot at the power home in which they were sheltered. During the indiscriminate shooting, two adults were victimized and a two-year-old child was killed after creature shot through the heart. Later that night, another black man was killed later the guards continued firing in Mulberry’s black neighborhood. The sheriff’s breakdown found no evidence of a firearm in the accused man’s possession nor at the location from which it was claimed he had fired. After quelling the rage of the townspeople, who wanted to attack the power home and mine guards, the sheriff arrested the four mine guards hurriedly after midnight.