History

Recent History

All in all, you'd have to say that trading in their oranges for tourism and high tech was a good move for the residents of this one-time backwater. Orlando is now the fourth most popular US destination among international visitors, after Miami, Los Angeles and New York City. The 'community of tomorrow' has proven itself to be forward-thinking, and in so doing has become an uber-achieving success today.

Modern Day History

By the turn of the century, Orlando had become a thriving farming community - the 'city built on the peel of an orange', as it was affectionately known. The citrus boom was succeeded by intermittent railroad and real estate booms, but the late 1950s brought a cash fountain that was to last: the beginnings of the Space Age. The Glenn Martin Company (now Martin Marietta Defence Systems) began missile production, and the creation of the Cape Canaveral and Cape Kennedy Space Centers on Florida's east coast brought infusions of cash and jobs to the area.

With the establishment of Walt Disney World in 1971, the area became a theme park megalopolis. But it's not just the theme parks doing all the attracting. While nobody was looking, Orlando established itself as a high tech corridor, the Silicon Valley of Florida.

Pre 20th Century History

Disney's 'Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow' (EPCOT) had a brutal beginning. Originally named Jernigan, Orlando was nothing but a rudimentary settlement tacked on to Fort Gatlin, a military base for American soldiers during the bloody Seminole Indian wars. At the close of the Second Seminole War, settlers moved in and renamed the region after Orlando Reeves, a soldier killed by Indians at Lake Eola.