DID YOU KNOW???

That prosperity came to Orange County in the 1880’s with the arrival of the railroad. Citrus pioneers were desperate for a way to get their fruit to market faster. Moving the crop to market was laborious process. The fruit traveled by boat up the St. Johns River to Jacksonville, where it was loaded onto trains or ships bound for Northern cities.

The railroads proved to be a boon for settlers, tourists, merchants and farmers. By November of 1880, the railroad was making two trips a week from Sanford to Orlando.

New England investors chartered the Florida Midland Railroad, also in 1883 and in 1886, built a line from Longwood west through Altamonte Springs and south to stops in Ocoee and then in Windermere in 1887. The line reached Kissimmee in 1890, a little more than 100 years before the Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course was being developed at Keene’s Pointe.

This undeveloped area was little more than a marshy wetland and pine forest with dense palmetto underbrush. Those with a vision saw the value of the crystal-clear lakes set among pine trees. The land was beautiful, but only a few adventurous settlers were lured as far as the Butler Chain of Lakes area in southwest Orange County until the coming of the railroad. The New Englander entrepreneurs formed the Florida Midland Railroad.  They saw the future for this area.

~~Excerpts taken from “Keene’s Pointe, A Retrospective” written by Kathy Aber