HISTORY: West Orange County of yesteryear for week of July 25, 2024

OLD TIMES / THE WAYS WE WERE

Excerpts from the newspaper archives:

80 years ago

Amid the scenic beauties of the Boy Scout Camp Wewa, Baptist young people assembled with 139 boys and girls of the Wekiwa Association. Winter Garden was well represented with Dorothy Kannon, Ima Jean Laney, Carolyn Bradford, Helen Loppacher, Carolyn Little, Virginia Healon, Mary Alice Healon, Sarah Ruth Healon and Elizabeth Arnold.

50 years ago

An overflowing crowd of friends gathered at the Winter Garden Inn to express their love and respect for Carolyn T. Anderson, a lifelong resident of Winter Garden and longtime teacher. The occasion had double significance, as it was scheduled as a retirement party, but it also happened to be her birthday.

Dr. Nagui Khouzam began practice in general medicine and surgery in the Medical Arts building on North Dillard Street in Winter Garden.

The new kindergarten director and teacher of the 5-year-old class at the First Baptist Church of Winter Garden was Eleanor Corbitt. Mrs. Robert Boney was hired to teach the 4-year-old class. The same year, the church sponsored a Children’s Day Care Program for children 6 months old and younger.

45 years ago

Harold L. Moody of Winter Garden received the Outstanding Biologist Award from the Organized Fishermen of Florida for his research to help the fisheries. He was a fisheries scientist with the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission.

40 years ago

Willie Jackson, longtime employee of Cypress Creek Nursery in Windermere, received a special plaque and cash award for submitting the winning suggestion in an ongoing employee suggestion program.

Duplicate bridge scores: N-S, first through fifth, Jane Margetts and Millie Dion, Helen Kerr and Clarice Baker, Bill Chapin and Katherine Petris, Ted Lindsay and Marge Cloughley, and Barbara Van Buren and Dot Parrish; E-W, first through fifth, Bill and Helen Kaas, Lou Kimball and Vernon Brownlee, Esther and Charlie Busch, Tommy DeLoach and Ralph Holland, and Mary Dial and Jean Glenn.

30 years ago

The city of Winter Garden announced plans to renovate the 100-foot pier that extended into Lake Apopka. The original 450-foot pier was completely burned down in the early 1960s, and the shorter one was built as a replacement. The plan was to replicate the original structure.

20 years ago

Ocoee’s longtime city clerk, Jean Grafton, retired after 30 years in City Hall. She was honored at a retirement party emceed by Mayor Scott Vandergrift, who gave her a butterfly kite — because the mayor said she often told him to go fly one — and a proclamation.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

JULY 23, 1970

Downtown Plant Street and the corridor of Dillard Street have been home to many businesses through the years. In 1970, one could order a giant sandwich from Fuzzy’s; wash and dry their clothes and linens in one location at the coin-operated Winter Garden Laundromat (63 S. Woodland St., behind Jimmy’s Thriftway); and catch a ride to somewhere else through the Greyhound Bus Station and Winter Garden Taxi, located at Howard Webb’s Atlantic Service Station (at the corner of Dillard and Story Road).

FROM THE WINTER GARDEN HERITAGE FOUNDATION ARCHIVES

The Orange Hotel stood on the northeast corner of the intersection of South Main and Joiner streets. Constructed near the end of the 19th century, the large wooden building was destroyed in a 1912 fire that also burned the Joiner packinghouse at right, along with other businesses.

During wet weather, wandering cows took shelter on the hotel’s front porch.

Similar architectural ornamentation can be seen today on the Petris-Hull house in Oakland.