HISTORY: West Orange County of yesteryear for the week of Aug. 22, 2024

OLD TIMES / THE WAYS WE WERE

95 years ago

The game of horseshoes was introduced at Lakeview High School because “it is a very interesting game to play for many reasons. First, it is a clean game and a good game to have at school, because after one gets through playing, he isn’t hot and his nerves aren’t too torn up. When he goes to class, he can put his mind on his work. But if he played a game of football, he would be hot and nervous and couldn’t study.”

70 years ago

The ground was broken for the erection of a combination church building and parish house for the Episcopal Church of the Messiah in Winter Garden. The church building was to be erected at the corner of Woodland and Tilden streets and was to be in the cathedral style of architecture. The seating capacity would be for about 120.

55 years ago

Two portable classrooms were added at Dillard Street Elementary School for the fall term. Additional classrooms also were placed at Winter Garden Elementary School. Increased enrollment made this move necessary by the Orange County School Board.

In the “beauty horoscope,” astrologers predicted the current Age of Aquarius would be one of joy, science and accomplishment.

50 years ago

After 35 years on South Main Street, W.T. Zeigler Furniture Company marked the beginning of a new chapter in its business life as it held the official grand opening of its new store on South Dillard Street.

45 years ago

The “Flying Ambassadors” from the Windermere Rotary Club made another trip to attend the Rotary meeting of the Hiltonhead Island, South Carolina, Rotary group. Members piloting for this trip were Rotary President Bill Colburn, Bob Pleus and Tom Watkins. Attending with them were members Jim Buttram, Tony Hicks, Gene Murphy, John Oswalt, Hugh Panton and Ulay Thompson.

35 years ago

The grand opening of the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women was held, coinciding with Palmer’s 60th birthday. The new facility, on the corner of Kuhl and Miller streets in Orlando, was built as part of the Orlando Regional Medical Center’s downtown complex. It included a child-size Disney’s Cinderella Castle in the atrium.

After three days of hearings, in which evidence was presented by both the defense and prosecuting attorneys, Orange County Circuit Judge Gary L. Formet upheld the death sentence of Tommy Zeigler, the man convicted of killing four people in his Winter Garden furniture store on Christmas Eve 1975.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

AUGUST 22, 1974

Prior to 1974, if you wanted to shop at Montgomery Ward, you had to drive to John Young Parkway and Highway 50, in Pine Hills. Fifty years ago, the department store arrived closer to home with the opening of a location in the Tri-City Shopping Center, in Winter Garden.

This was the place to shop if you needed a modern console stereo with four-channel chassis changer, receiver and speakers. Your cost? Only $339.88.

For $369.88, TV watchers could walk away with a 25-inch diagonal TV in Mediterranean or Colonial style offering great-looking color, tinted glass and push button on/off.

Need something for taking care of your lawn? A seven-horsepower riding mower was $388, and a three-horsepower rotary mower was a mere $64.88.

One benefit of shopping at the new store was you could charge everything for your home with a Ward credit card.

FROM THE WINTER GARDEN HERITAGE FOUNDATION ARCHIVES

Guests gathered in 1999 for a birthday celebration for Alice Blaine at Shirley Smith’s Trailside Antiques, once located at 12 West Plant Street in Winter Garden (today’s Bond Building, the home of Three Birds Café.) In attendance were, l-r: front row, unidentified, Blaine, Ann Harrell, Kim Dryfoos’ son and Kim Dryfoos; back row, Kim Rose, unidentified, Shirley Smith, Rod Reeves, Chris Severance and Linda Severance. Most of the revelers had ties to the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation as directors, volunteers and docents.