Celebrating Ocoee’s Centennial: 1945-55

World War II ended in 1945, and things were looking up for Ocoee citizens. By the late 1940s, the city of Ocoee boasted a volunteer fire department, a number of clubs and organizations, many citrus packinghouses, and several small airports.

FIGHTING FLAMES

In the early days of fighting fires, a shotgun fired three times alerted citizens help was needed to fight a fire. In the 1930s, a whistle was installed at John “Foots” Vandergrift’s Shell Station at the corner of Bluford Avenue and McKey Street to let everyone know help was needed.

Folks weren’t called upon to fight the fire but to help the family get their personal property out of the house before it burned to the ground. Pianos always were the first item removed.

To lower insurance rates, the city established a volunteer fire department in 1948. Harold Maguire was chief; Edwin Pounds was assistant chief; and the firefighters were Tiger Minor, H.W. Wurst, Delma Fields, Frank Holmes, Bud Owens, Cliff Freeman, Lester McKenney and Donald Vandergrift.

Two trucks were purchased from the Orlando Fire Department for $1 each because they were so old; they were started by front-end hand cranks.

Hoyle Pounds helped the city purchase a siren for $75, and it was placed on a pole attached to the post office. To keep birds from building nests inside the siren, the postmaster blew the siren every day at noon — starting the tradition of the noon whistle that lasted into the late 1960s.

When it came time to build a firehouse, the Christian Church donated property for the cause. The city needed to raise an additional $1,500, so a man storing a skating rink in Ocoee allowed the town to set it up and erect a tent where Kissimmee Avenue and McKey and Taylor streets meet and solicit volunteers to man the rink on the weekends. After a year, the money was raised.

In 1952, the city could not afford to purchase a fire truck to replace its 35-year-old trucks. Maguire proposed to the city that if it bought a Chevy chassis and new fire pump, he and Walker Creel, an experienced welder, would build the truck. The city agreed and also bought about $1,000 worth of metal. The two men completed the project in six months. The final cost to the city for this truck was about $3,700.

SERVING WITH PURPOSE

The Ocoee Lions Club was chartered in 1948 with 31 members under the sponsorship of the Winter Garden Lions Club.

The club provided service to the community and supported many of the major projects of Lions International and Florida Lions, including the Foundation for the Blind and youth programs.

For years, the Ocoee club sponsored annual events, such as a turkey shoot and the Ocoee Christmas Parade, and provided the city’s display at the Central Florida Fair.

The Ocoee Lions Club was one of the few in the state to own its own building. W.L. Broadaway donated the land and building — a former old train depot on Taylor Street — to the club, and it was used as a clubhouse beginning in 1979.

Today, the club continues to provide eye examinations and glasses, hearing tests and hearing aids to those in need.

FORTUNE CROPS

Bluford Sims was the first resident to use his land near Lake Apopka to plant his grafted orange trees in rows to create a productive grove. Citrus was, by far, the largest crop in the area, but farmers tried their hand at vegetable farming too.

When the railroad tracks were laid, growers purchased and cleared larger portions of land, knowing their produce could see a wider market.

In the 1930s, Ocoee had 288 households, with 31 families engaged in truck farming, 42 in citrus growing and two in the poultry business. As well, 178 citizens were farm workers or fruit packers.

At one time, citrus packinghouses dotted the landscape of Ocoee, with names such as Sims, Pounds, Minorville, Maguire, Seegar, Pease Fruit Growers, Ocoee Fruit Packers, Chase & Co., Richardson-Marsh and Certi-fine.

By the mid-1940s, Florida surpassed California in the production of citrus. In the mid-1950s, orange groves were found in every direction, mile after mile. Residents were disappointed a few years later when the sweet fragrance of orange blossoms was replaced by the unpleasant odor of orange juice concentrate plants.

A series of winter freezes starting in 1962 signaled the beginning of the end for citrus growers, and devastating freezes in 1981, 1983 and 1989 put many farmers out of business.

FLYING HIGH

Longcoy Airport opened in 1949 north of what is now Silver Star Road and west of Johio Shores Road. It was owned and operated by Olin Longcoy and provided aerial spraying of crops, later concentrating on citrus. Longcoy invented and manufactured spraying equipment that was used all over the world.

In the 1950s, Maguire Airport “opened” in the middle of Harold Maguire’s orange grove. The “airport,” located on Maguire Road, was a way for him to land his personal aircraft on his own property. It was put on air maps for emergency landings but was little more than a plowed field.

The 2,800-foot, north-south runway didn’t have any lights, so when Maguire landed his plane, he lined up with the lights on Bluford Avenue, the light under the hangar he built and the light on his manufacturing plant.

When local airplane owners learned of the Maguire airstrip, they inquired about storing their planes there, so Maguire, concerned about liability, started the process of becoming a licensed field. By 1969, Maguire Airport was official.

SCHOOL DAYS

Beginning in the fall of 1950, Orange County decided to consolidate the high school portion of Ocoee and Lakeview, in Winter Garden, into one school. From the 1950-51 school year through the graduating class of 1961, Orange Senior High students graduated from Lakeview High School.

During the years that Ocoee was only an elementary and junior high school, two first-grade wings were added to the elementary area and a new cafeteria was built. The old one was known as “The Dungeon.” It later was converted to an art room.

In the fall of 1959, the consolidation of Ocoee and Lakeview came to end.

(Photos and information courtesy of the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation and Nancy Maguire's book, "A History of Ocoee & its Pioneers.")