Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules, print it, and then click where indicated at the end of the 3-page rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
This was built in 1926, as was much of the Eola Heights neighborhood. Its floor plan is assymetrical, featuring a prominent central tower with a sculptured entranceway. The home has a red tile roof and a wrought iron balcony, both common in this Mediterranean Revival style.
This eclectic home was built in 1926 and features elements of three main styles. From the Prairie School are a hipped roof with overhanging eaves and the height proportions of the first floor to the second. There are also features found in Classical Revival and Italianate designs.
This is one of the city's purest examples of the Art Deco/Art Moderne style which evolved in the 1930s. This home built in 1936 features glass block integrated in a solid plane, a flat roof, corner windows with multiple lights, and minimal ornamentation. The general impression is a sense of balance on this prominent corner lot.
This Colonial Revival house was built in 1905 for Estella Miner.
This is a typical small Florida Bungalow, built in 1917 by H.L. Coleman for J.C. Kenner.
This was the residence of Raymond H. Lockhart, the son of the owner of the Lockhart Lumberyard. It is a Colonial Revival style home, built in 1912 by Berry J. Lord, and was later owned by W.H. Chadwick.
This California Bungalow with a Western Stick style was built in 1920 and was owned by George C. Johnson. It shows the influence of the Japanese architecture which was present in California from 1900 to 1920.
This church organized during the 1920s, and construction on the $125,000 sanctuary began in 1925 with completion the following year. This is the oldest church building in Orlando still being used for its original purpose.
The Seventh-Day Adventists organized in 1890 and in 1908 had a sanctuary at the corner of Terry Ave. and Central Blvd. Later, they moved here and occupied a church which they sold in 1953. In 1957, the five-story Metro Building was erected here.
When his first sanitarium, established in 1910 on E. Central Blvd., was outgrown, Dr. C.D. Christ established the Orlando Sanitarium here. Later, this was the site of the Osceola Hotel.
In 1944, the YMCA bought the hotel, which fronted 220 feet on Magnolia Ave., 220 feet on Robinson St., and went through to Rosalind Ave. It was turned into a Piggly-Wiggly grocery store in 1946, and later the chain of stores became the Winn-Lovett Company.
In January of 1954, the lease was bought out by George Stuart, who remodeled the grocery store building for the office furniture department of his business. Later tenants have included an art gallery, restaurant and gymnasium.
This 15-story office building was completed in 1970. It is now known as the Eola Park Centre. On a portion of this property was a home owned by Jim Spellman.
In 1946, William H. Herrin sold his nine-room house for $16,000 to the Seventh-Day Adventists, who had a church next door at the corner of Rosalind Ave. and Robinson St. They used it for a Sabbath school and Young Peoples' meeting place.
Henry Newell (1862-1940) and his wife, Gertrude Sweet (1863-1945), after whom Gertrude Ave. and Gertrude's Walk are named, lived in a house located here. She was once voted the most beautiful woman in Orange County. She played piano in her husband's orchestra.
F. Bellows built a two-story T-plan home here in about 1905. It was bought in 1906 by William A. Dade, who established the Eola Packing Company. In 1923, it was the home of Robert H.F. Dade, who established the Peninsula Chemical Company to produce chemicals for agricultural use.
A house was built here for Street Commissioner Georg W. Papot in 1882. Just to the west was the home of the McNeills, in which the First Unitarian Church of Orlando was formally organized. Two dozen people showed up for an organizational meeting on February 21, 1912, and 21 signed the congregation's first membership book. Rev. Eleanor Gordon traveled here from Iowa to preside, and received a salary of $20 per week plus traveling expenses.
This is the fourth in a series of bandshells at the lake. The first was built in 1918. The second, completed in 1924, was demolished in 1957. The third was planned for a site 200 feet south of the previous ones on the east side of the lake. Plans were changed in 1959 to instead place it here on the west side of the lake, and it was built in 1962 for $35,000. It was replaced by the present one in 1989 at a cost of $900,000.
Orlando's second high school was built by J.C. Hanner in 1922 on this site with a frontage of 301.65 feet on Rosalind Ave. and 231 feet on Washington St. Its official dedication on December 3, 1922, featured an address by Dr. Fons A. Hathway. The school was dedicated to "The Orange County Boys Who Gave Their Lives in the World War".
The school was later replaced by another (now Howard Middle School) at the corner of Summerlin Ave. and Robinson St.
In June of 1961, the building was sold to Roland M. Mumford, president of the Meyer Hotel of Jacksonville, for $400,077.77. The old school building was torn down and the Robert Meyer Hotel opened here with 250 rooms on May 15, 1963, at a cost of $4,000,000. On December 1, 1972, the Robert Meyer Motor Inn became the Kahler Plaza Inn, was later the Harley Hotel, and then joined the Sheraton chain. It was later converted to condominiums.
In 1950, this property which had provided tourist lodging was sold for $33,800. Later, it was remodeled into attorneys' offices.
The hexagonal blocks used in the Streetscape improvement project of the mid-1980s, which can be seen in the roadway, are replicas of those produced by the Edward and Fred Gore family in the early 1900s at their cement works on Boone Ave. The originals were used in the early city sidewalks, after which the new ones are modeled.
This Neo-Classical Revival style church building began as the First Church of Christ, Scientist, based on the 1925 design of architect George Foote Durham. It is laid out in a Greek cross pattern with a copper dome, and was based on the plan of the Pantheon. Construction was completed in May of 1928.
In 1975, the building was sold to a law firm that leased it to the St. George congregation, which had organized in 1969.
This garden includes a large black slab of marble from the mountains of Hua-Lien County on the eastern coast of Taiwan. It was presented to Orlando by the City of Tainan, Taiwan, Republic of China.
The club was organized in 1894 as the Ladies Social Club of Orlando, and had its first building where the Angebilt Hotel now is. It was originally conceived as a predominantly social club with humanitarian concerns. This building was built in 1916, and was designed by Murry S. King.
Rosalind Ave. was named in 1919 after the club, and not the other way around. It was formerly known as West St., since it formed the western boundary of Jacob Summerlin's land.
The First Unitarian Church of Orlando, founded by Caroline Gore in her home on January 8, 1911, bought this site for a sanctuary in 1913. Rev. Eleanor E. Gordon served as the first minister starting in 1913, followed in 1918 by Rev. George Badger of Boston.
The last Unitarian service in the building was held on January 2, 1957. The congregation is now located to the east on Robinson St.
The present building on this corner was designed by Richard Boone Rogers and was completed in 1957. Initially, it contained the law office of Sam Murrell.
In the late 1800s, this was the site of W.A. Lovell's 300-head cattle corral. Col. Charles Lewis Albertson retired to Orlando in 1913, and in November of 1921 agreed to donate his personal 12,000-volume $100,000 library to the city on the condition that it would build a home for the books. The Albertson Public Library opened in 1923 at the northwest corner of Central Blvd. and Rosalind Ave., with an address of 10 N. Rosalind Ave. It was designed by architect Murry S. King, who had moved to Orlando from Murrysville, Pennsylvania, in 1904.
The library opened its present building on August 7, 1966, and greatly expanded to 290,000 square feet in 1985. The textured concrete surface was created by architect John Johanson.
One of the former structures on the site now occupied by the library was the Summerlin Hotel. Jacob Summerlin arrived in Orlando in 1873 and built a house there, about 100 feet back from Magnolia Ave. and facing the courthouse, on the site of the old Lovell Store. The home was later remodeled by Summerlin into a rooming house here for $15,000. He moved the building to the north to have an address of 104 E. Washington St. and make room for the fire station. The Summerlin Hotel was torn down in 1942.
Also on the site at 113 E. Central Blvd. until 1964 was the Chamber of Commerce. Earlier, at 115 E. Central Blvd., was the citadel auditorium of the Salvation Army, which opened on October 18, 1928. The building had been built in 1922 to house the First Christian Church.
Sayres B. Harrington bought the Lake View House hotel here in 1877, and operated it until 1880. In 1925, Harry P. Leu bought this property from the Tiedtke Brothers. Later owners and operators included Absolom H. Carey, Eugene and Carrie Shaw Sperry, Claude Robertson and Ethel McMakin. It had a frontage of 231 feet on Central Blvd. and 125 feet on Rosalind Ave. In 1960, it became the location of the University Club, founded in 1926, and its parking lot. The $250,000 club building was designed by Alex Holton.
The earliest home at this site was that of Edgar A. Richards of New Boston, New Hampshire, who came to Orlando in 1869. He built a home and blacksmith shop on this land, which he bought from Jacob Summerlin.
In 1882, Amanda L. Ford of Belpre, Ohio, bought the west half of this block, built a house, and had a cow shiped from Ohio. Hers was the first milk cow in Orlando.
Moses O. Overstreet of Georgia moved to Florida in 1898 and engaged in the turpentine business. He moved from Plymouth to Orlando in 1903 and had a large brick house built at this corner by L.C. Townsend in 1916.
The home was razed in October of 1954 to make room for a parking lot for what became Southeast Bank. The garage, which had been the Sorosis library, stood until the fall of 1974.
On June 26, 1975, the 16-story all-glass Southeast National Bank of Orlando Building was dedicated. It cost $8,500,000.
In 1925, the Masons purchased two lots here and built this temple. It was dedicated on January 13, 1926. The building was bought in 1982 for $660,000 and remodeled for professional offices.
This fountain was built in 1913-14. It was planned by City Engineer Ramsey, built by Hanner Brothers, and the land and its $2,000 cost were donated by E.F. Sperry. The central figure is an acanthus leaf with a duck base, surmounted by a bittern.
W.R. O'Neal's home on Liberty Ave. was bought by the Episcopal Missionary Jurisdiction of South Florida, and in 1900 it became the Pell-Clarke School for Girls. The house was renamed Pell-Clarke Hall. In 1906, it was renamed the Cathedral School.
Bishop Gray Hall, as it was then called, was torn down in 1929. Four years later, the school became co-ed. The school was integrated in the fall of 1963 and razed four years later to make room for a parking lot.
Located here was the home of Jacob Summerlin, on the corner of Central Blvd. and Liberty Ave., facing Lake Eola. When it was later operated as the Dwellere Hotel, rooms were let at $2 per day and it was known as the Waldorf-Astoria of its day. It was condemned in 1961 and removed to make room for Southeast Bank.
Murry S. King designed, and A.M. Larson built, a large, stately brick home for W.N. McRainey in 1920. It later was the location of the law firm of Anderson & Rush, and was torn down in 1999.
This building opened in 1951 as the home of a life insurance company. It later became attorneys' offices.
This plaque honors Matthew R. Marks, who served as mayor in 1889-90 and started a program of planting shade trees. The plaque was attached to a large oak tree on the south side of Lake Lucerne in 1925. When the Davis Causeway was built, bisecting the lake, the plaque was moved here.
This property formerly belonged to O.P. Swope, the founder of the First Federal Savings and Loan Association. The present two-story building was erected in 1956 to house the insurance business of Dick Tucker and Jack Branham.
A Colonial Revival style house built here in 1917 was the home of John M. Cook. He had a blacksmith shop on E. Pine St. and was Orlando's first auto mechanic and sold Buicks and Cadillacs. In 1914, he was in charge of an auto cavalcade from Orlando to Miami to promote the need for good roads. His house here was torn down in 1988.
The first band shell in Mills Park, the predecessor of later performing arts locations around Lake Eola, sat in the 1890s on the site of this large building. Later, this was the site of the Ann Lisbeth Seese Private School.
In 1952, Paul Smith Construction Co. of Tampa built this $1,000,000 hotel, designed by Gary Boyle of Tampa. At the time, it was the costliest building ever erected in Orlando.
In July of 1957, the hotel was sold to Cherry and Associates for $2,000,000, and was renamed the Cherry Plaza. Lyndon Johnson spent a night here on October 25, 1964, the first time a president had slept in Orlando. It was later renamed the Park Plaza.
The hotel was purchased in January of 1972 by the First Baptist Church of Pompano Beach for $2,250,000. The hotel closed in September of 1973. During a 1975 bankruptcy, the First Baptist Church of Margate lost the hotel.
It is now known simply as The Plaza Apartments.
A Colonial Revival style home here built by J.G. Manuel in 1915 was the home of dentist Alton B. Whitman. He was the president and founder of the Orange County Dental Society and his wife, Helen, was the first woman to act as an election teller in Orlando.
This 150 lb. bronze bust of Simon Bolivar was donated by the president of the Republic of Venezuela to the City of Orlando in March of 1996. It honors the liberator of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru, and founder of Bolivia. It was the first of a series of international heroes who are honored with sculptures in this park.
William A. Lovell came from Mellonville in 1854 and set up a steam-powered sawmill on the northwest shore. Jacob Summerlin moved to Orlando in 1873 and bought 200 acres, including the lake itself, for 25 cents and acre. Jacob's son, Robert, named the lake after a female friend. Before that, it was called "the lake" or "Sandy Beach".
Harry Ustler, a flower company order clerk from Springfield, Ohio, moved to Florida in 1912 and found that ferns could be grown here for only 10 to 20% of their cost in Ohio. He became a waiter at the Altamonte Hotel, and while there shared this information with hotel guest W.P. Newell. These two men began growing ferns in a shed near Lake Eola, then moved to Apopka, which ultimately became the fern growing capital of the country.
One popular story about the origin of the name "Orlando" credits it to Orlando Reeves, a soldier killed in an Indian battle near here in September of 1835. He had kept watch at night and saw wheat he thought was a log in the lake. As he realized it was an Indian he gave an alarm and fell with a mortal wound from an arrow. Reeves was bured in the area known as "Orlando's Grave".
It is likely that Reeves was slain on the banks of Lake Cherokee, rather than at this location. During the Seminole Wars, the area near this marker was a swamp, and not a likely camping area for the troops.
The Reeves tablet was dedicated and placed here in 1939 by students from Cherokee Junior High School.
This monument was placed here in 1924 by the Daughters of the American Revolution to honor those who died during World War I.
This was the home of H.J. Lord, built in 1919. In 1937, Dr. John R. Mott arrived to spend his winters here, and he continued to live here until 1955. It has a basic Neo-Classical Revival style.
The O. Thomas Switzer family of Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, came to Orlando in 1886 and built their home here. They were the first to adapt the Swiss Chalet style of architecture, and their home was known as the Swiss House.
In the 1930s, the home of Maynard Evans Sr. was located here. He and his brother established the Evans Drug Store in 1917 and went on to own and operate several pharmacies into the 1950s. Evans also served on the school board and to honor him, an Orlando high school bears his name.
This was formerly known as East St. because it was the eastern boundary of Jacob Summerlin's land. The name was changed to Eola Dr. in 1923.
This Prairie School style house was one of the homes of Joseph LeRoy Guernsey. It was erected in 1910 by carpenter and builder Columbus Sweat.
Robert Howe moved to Orlando in 1883, established an orange grove at Lake Concord and built his 1903 home at this location. In 1919, he sold it to Chauncey Boyer for $9,000.
In the 1890s, the Bennett sisters from England taught at their private school here.
Dentist Edmund James Baird came to Orlando in 1886 and built a home at this corner.
This road is named after Jacob Summerlin.
This Bungaloid was built by James L. Dean, a druggist, in 1917. He had founded the City Drug Store in 1914 and instituted a policy of staying open all night long. He sold his store in 1922 so he could have more time to devote to his seed business.
This was originally erected on February 16, 1911, in the middle of the intersection of Magnolia Ave. and Central Blvd. At that time, the soldier faced north, symbolizing the men who marched off to war. It was moved to this location in 1917.
In 1964, vandals broke the rifle and scattered the pieces. Internationally known sculptor Albin Polasek, who had a studio in Winter Park, repaired the statue at no charge.
The Orlando Centennial Fountain was formally dedicated on October 5, 1957. W.C. Pauley, an Atlanta landscape artist, was paid $1,200 for his plans, and the total construction cost was $162,000. It was built in 24-foot deep water by driving 28 60-foot long steel cylinders, which were then filled with 320 tons of concrete. It is not in the center of the lake to avoid a very deep sinkhole located there. The name was changed to the Linton E. Allen Fountain in April of 1966.
The lake was the site of a swimming beach, a bathhouse, a horse track built in 1887 by the city, a zoo, and fairgrounds. Jacob Summerlin gave the city the lake and most of the land fronting on Orange Ave. and Central Blvd.
John P. Musselwhite of North Carolina arrived in Orlando in 1897, and bought land between Lake Eola and Summerlin Ave. He donated land on the north, east and south of the lake to complete the park.
This monument sculpted by Chris Scala is modeled after one in Clervaux, Luxembourg. Dedicated on October 5, 1999, it is believed to be only the second monument worldwide to honor the U.S. servicemen who fought in the Battle of the Bulge from December 16, 1944, to January 28, 1945. It was the largest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army.
This was built in 1922 by Edward Salmon and named the Eola Hotel. As the Bonnie Villa Hotel, it was sold in 1925 for $125,000 to Drs. John McEwan and Gaston Edwards, who developed it into a modern clinic with a staff of 11 doctors. In 1932, the building housed a college of music.
The YMCA moved here in 1954 from its former headquarters on Magnolia Ave. It later served as a retirement home, youth hostel, boutique hotel and restaurant.
Belton Long was born in Orlando in 1870. He operated a successful dairy on W. Robinson St., and built this home and his wife, Dora.
This was built over an old sand pit in 1926 and opened as Orlando High School in 1927. It became a junior high school when Edgewater and Boone High Schools were opened in 1952. At that time, it was renamed to honor school board member Clarence Howard.
The final principal here while this was a high school was William R. Boone, who was scheduled to be the first principal at the new high school at the corner of Mills Ave. and Kaley St. On the last day of this school's official existence he suffered a fatal heart attack in the school's hallway. The new high school was named William R. Boone High School in his honor.
The Temple Israel congregation organized in 1954 and built this synagogue. In 1966, the congregation moved out and the building was sold to the Free Methodist Church. It later housed the United Pentecostal Church.
The first Catholic school in Orlando was built in 1889 on the block bounded by Orange and Magnolia Aves., and Robinson and Jefferson Sts. It was run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, who also used it as a convent.
This school building was built in 1928 by the Louis Fleischer Construction Company for $150,000. The main entrance and details show a Northern Italian Renaissance style, utilizing the design of architect Maurice K. Kressly. The new convent was built later on the south side of the street.
This is a typical one-and-a-half story Bungalow, built in 1923. It features exposed rafter ends, sweeping eaves, and widely spaced porch columns atop heavy piers. The gabled dormer supported by notched brackets is common in many Arts and Crafts style designs.
Previously on this corner was the home of Samuel A. Robinson, who moved to Orlando from Michigan in 1876. He was one of the area's earliest surveyors. His home was built of logs and was the first house in Central Florida to have its chinks filled in with plaster.
The present house was the home of developer Carl Dann, who sold it in 1940 to Dr. V.A. Strager from South Bend, Indiana. He converted the 14-room house into the Orlando Osteopathic Hospital. The hospital moved out in 1961 and opened a 50-bed facility on Lake Underhill Rd.
Flashbacks: The Story of Central Florida's Past, by Jim Robison and Mark Andrews (The Orlando Sentinel 1995)
Florida: A Pictorial History, by Hampton Dunn (The Donning Company 1988)
Historical, Architectural and Archaeological Survey of Orlando, Florida, (Bureau of Historic Sites and Properties 1983)
History of Orange County, Florida, by William Fremont Blackman (The Mickler House 1973)
History of Orlando, by E.H. Gore (1951)
Orlando: A Centennial History, by Eve Bacon (The Mickler House 1975)
Orlando History in Architecture, (Orlando Historic Preservation Board 1984)
Orlando: The City Beautiful, by Jerrell H. Shofner (Continental Heritage Press 1984)