Talk:Winter Garden, Florida

History section
Moved this entire section from the main article page. It sounds good, but is completely uncited, and reads like something from a book, so may be copyvio. Rather than just delete it, I thought it better to preserve, so it may be working on and possibly restored to the main page. With appropriate citations and such, of course. :) -Ebyabe 21:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like it's from the Orlando Homebuyer Magazine. Edgical (talk) 20:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

==History== It was 1857 when Becky Roper Stafford’s great-great-grandfather first glimpsed Lake Apopka. W. C. Roper was riding through the backwoods of west Orange County on horseback, seeking a place to build a home for his family waiting back in Merriwether County, Ga.

Roper bought 600 acres along the shore, between present-day Winter Garden and Oakland, and returned a year later with his wife and 10 children. The ambitious settler operated a sawmill, gristmill, sugar mill and cotton gin. Later he built a tannery for making shoes, and served as Orange County’s superintendent of schools from 1873 to 1877.

Fast-forward to the 1920s, when Roper’s son Frank planted the area’s first orange trees, marking the humble beginnings of an industry that would sustain and define Winter Garden, which had been incorporated in 1903, for the next six decades.

It was a busy time for Winter Garden’s three-story Edgewater Hotel, now a bed-and-breakfast, which opened in 1927 with a telegraph office, electric heating and fire sprinkler system. As the only hotel in the western portion of the county for nearly 30 years, the Edgewater emerged as a primary community gathering spot, a place where special events were held and business deals were sealed.

Winter Garden remained an idyllic small town throughout World War II and into the 1950s and 1960s. Far removed from Orlando, which was about to be reshaped by the advent of Disney World, the city remained self-sufficient and unpretentious. “I grew up with the scent of orange blossoms,” says Stafford, whose father Bert was also a prominent local citrus grower. She remembers when Davis’ Pharmacy was the place to meet friends for a vanilla Coke and when the Starlite Drive-In attracted weekend crowds of teens and families alike.

“Winter Garden was the quintessential vibrant small town,” says Stafford. “We had the distinction of being the only town with two train depots because it was such a busy shipping community with fresh fruit going all over the world.”

Fast-forward again to the 1980s, when devastating freezes destroyed thousands of acres of citrus. Roper Growers Cooperative, Heller Brothers and Louis Dreyfus Citrus eventually recovered. But as growers regrouped or retreated, once bustling downtown Winter Garden became a virtual ghost town.

Concurrently, developers began buying up decimated groves for new homes, creating new subdivisions seemingly overnight. But most of the residential growth, and the retail growth that followed, was outside the city, which made Winter Garden proper even more of an anachronism.

Then came a brilliant project called Rails to Trails, through which abandoned rail beds across the country were converted into hiking and biking trails. The popular West Orange Trail passed directly through Winter Garden, thus converting the all-but-forgotten city into an oasis for thousands of ready-to-spend strollers.

Rails to Trails has been an incredible catalyst,” says Stafford, who now works with the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation to help rekindle her hometown memories. “All of a sudden, we had 10,000, then 20,000, now 50,000 people a month coming through downtown Winter Garden.”

City officials have made certain that these visitors will be charmed by what they see. In 2001, the Winter Garden Downtown Historic District underwent a facelift. Brick streets were restored, old buildings were remodeled and Centennial Fountain, saluting the city’s citrus-growing heritage, was constructed.

Today local and outlanders gather at Choctaw Willie’s in the reopened Edgewater Hotel for barbecue, collard greens and sweet tea. Across the street, Moon Cricket Café serves eclectic cuisine and an array of micro-brewed beers. Winter Garden Pizza Factory is all about pasta, fresh pies and family fun.

Proprietor-owned shops, like JR’s Attic, Downtown Herbe Shoppe and Every Little Girl’s Dream, are thriving. But you’ll still find a wonderfully cluttered hardware store that sells farming supplies, which serves as a reminder that this town quaintness isn’t contrived.

And, locals proudly note, Winter Garden features three historical museums open seven days a week. There’s the Central Florida Railroad Museum and the Heritage Museum, both housed in restored depots. History buffs may also stroll around the city and view such landmarks as the 1860s-era Beulah Baptist Church.

Can't seem to edit the links to the Winter Garden web site but the URLs have changed and need to be updated. Kim Moser (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC) -- OK Fixed Edgical (talk) 13:43, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Waukesha parade attack connection
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2021/12/13/winter-garden-christmas-parade-cancelled-after-driver-crashes-into-route seems similar, should this be covered in a subsection here, or it's own article? WakandaQT (talk) 20:41, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Source Verification Template Message
Since the addition of the the verification template message at the top of the page, I have added sources where needed or reworded the paragraph to better fit the already present sources. I believe that the template message can now be safely removed. WMcCoy1999 (talk) 16:16, 8 March 2024 (UTC)