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city in and county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States
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Orlando ( or-LAN-doh) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. Part of Central Florida, it is the fourth-most populous city in the state and its most populous inland city, with a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census. The Orlando metropolitan area has an estimated 2.67 million residents as of 2020, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in Florida and the 22nd-largest in the U.S.
Orlando attracts tourism and conventions with major events and theme parks. It is the fourth-most visited city in the U.S. after New York City, Miami, and Los Angeles, with over 3.5 million visitors as of 2023. Orlando International Airport is the 7th-busiest airport in the United States and the 18th-busiest in the world. The two largest and most internationally renowned tourist attractions in the Orlando area are the Walt Disney World resort, opened by the Walt Disney Company in 1971 and located about 21 miles (34 km) southwest of Orlando in Bay Lake, and the Universal Orlando resort, opened in 1990 as a major expansion of Universal Studios Florida and the only theme park inside Orlando city limits.
Apart from its theme parks, most major cultural sites such as the Orlando Museum of Art and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, and nightlife, bars, and clubs are located in downtown Orlando. Other attractions like Orlando Eye at ICON Park are located along International Drive. The city is also one of the busiest American cities for conferences and conventions; the Orange County Convention Center is the second-largest convention facility in the United States. Orlando is commonly associated with the nearby University of Central Florida, one of the largest universities in the United States. The city's major league professional sports teams include the Orlando Magic (NBA), Orlando Pride (NWSL) and Orlando City SC (MLS).
Fort Gatlin, as the Orlando area was once known, was established at what is now just south of the city limits by the 4th U.S. Artillery under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander C. W. Fanning on November 9, 1838, during the construction of a series of fortified encampments across Florida during the Second Seminole War. The fort and surrounding area were named for John S. Gatlin, an Army physician who was killed in the Dade battle on December 28, 1835. The site of construction for Fort Gatlin, a defensible position with fresh water between three small lakes, was likely chosen because the location was on a main trail and is less than 250 yards from a nearby Council Oak tree, where Native Americans had traditionally met. King Phillip and Coacoochee frequented this area and the tree was alleged to be the place where the previous 1835 ambush that had killed over 100 soldiers had been planned. When the U.S. military abandoned the fort in 1839, the surrounding community was built up by settlers.
Prior to being known by its current name, Orlando was once known as Jernigan. This name originates from the first European permanent settlers, Isaac and Aaron Jernigan, cattlemen who moved from the state of Georgia and acquired land 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Fort Gatlin along the west end of Lake Holden in July 1843 by the terms of the Armed Occupation Act. Aaron Jernigan became Orange County's first state representative in 1845, but his pleas for additional military protection went unanswered.
Fort Gatlin was briefly reoccupied by the military for a few weeks during October and November 1849, and subsequently a volunteer militia was left to defend the settlement. A historical marker indicates that by 1850, the Jernigan homestead (or Fort Gatlin in some sources) served as the nucleus of a village named Jernigan. According to an account written years later by his daughter, at that time, about 80 settlers were forced to shelter for about a year in "a stockade that Aaron Jernigan built on the north side of Lake Conway". One of the county's first records, a grand jury's report, mentions a stockade where it states homesteaders were "driven from their homes and forced to huddle together in hasty defences [sic]." In 1852, Aaron Jernigan led a local volunteer militia beginning in advance of the Third Seminole War.
A post office opened at Jernigan in 1850. Jernigan appears on an 1855 map of Florida, and by 1856, the area had become the county seat of Orange County. In 1857, the post office was removed from Jernigan, and opened under the name of Orlando at a new location in present-day downtown Orlando. The move is believed to have been sparked, in part, by Aaron Jernigan's fall from grace after he was relieved of his militia command by military officials in 1856. His behavior was so notorious that United States Secretary of War Jefferson Davis wrote, "It is said they [Jernigan's militia] are more dreadful than the Indians." In 1859, Jernigan and his sons were accused of committing a murder at the town's post office. They were then transported to Ocala, but escaped. During the American Civil War, the post office closed, but reopened in 1866.
At a meeting in 1857, debate had grown concerning the name of the town. Pioneer William B. Hull recalled how James Speer (a local resident, and prominent figure in the stories behind the naming of Orlando) rose in the heat of the argument and said, "This place is often spoken of as 'Orlando's Grave.' Let's drop the word 'grave' and let the county seat be Orlando."
The origin of the name is unknown but at least five stories relate how Orlando got its name. The most common stories are that the name Orlando originated from the tale of a man who died in 1835 during an attack by Native Americans in the area during the Second Seminole War. Several of the stories relay an oral history of the marker for a person named Orlando, and the double entendre, "Here lies Orlando." One variant includes a man named Orlando who was passing by on his way to Tampa with a herd of oxen, died, and was buried in a marked grave.
Through a retelling of history, a marker of some sort was believed to have been found by one of the original pioneers, but Speer's family has since claimed that Speer simply used the Orlando Reeves legend to help push his plan for naming the settlement after the Shakespearean character from As You Like It, his favorite play. This has become the most common accepted version of how Orlando got its name.
Historians agree that likely no soldier was named Orlando Reeves. Folklore is that Reeves was acting as a sentinel for a company of soldiers that had set up camp for the night on the banks of Sandy Beach Lake. Several different lakes are mentioned in the various versions, as no soldiers were in what is now downtown during 1835.
The legend grew throughout the early 1900s, particularly with local historian Olive Brumbaugh (or Kena Fries) retelling in various writings and on local radio station WDBO in 1929. Another historian, Eldon H. Gore, promoted the Reeves legend in History of Orlando published in 1949. A memorial beside Lake Eola – originally placed by students of Orlando's Cherokee Junior School in 1939 and updated in 1990 – designates the spot where the city's supposed namesake fell.
Conflicting legends exist. One legend has Reeves killed during an extended battle with the Seminoles after being field promoted after his platoon commander fell. An in-depth review of military records in the 1970s and 1980s, though, turned up no record of Orlando Reeves ever existing. Some versions attempt to account for Reeves having no military records by using the name of other people named Orlando that exist in some written records – Orlando Acosta; however, not much is known about Acosta or whether he even existed. Another version of the story has Orlando Reed, supposedly an Englishman and mail carrier between Fort Gatlin and Fort Mellon, allegedly killed while camping with his friends near Fort Gatlin.
A second variation also places the story in 1835 during the Second Seminole War. This name is taken from a South Carolinian cattle rancher named Orlando Savage Rees. Rees owned a Volusia County sugar mill and plantation, as well as several large estates in Florida and Mississippi. Rees' sugar farms in the area were burned out in the Seminole attacks of 1835 (the year Orlando Reeves supposedly died). Subsequently, Rees led an expedition to recover stolen slaves and cattle. In 1837, Rees also attempted to stop a peace treaty with the Seminoles because it did not reimburse him for the loss of slaves and crops.
Rees could have left a pine-bough marker with his name next to the trail; later residents misread "Rees" as "Reeves" and also mistook it as a grave maker. In subsequent years, this story has merged with the Orlando Reeves story (which may have originally incorporated part of Dr. Gatlin's story).
On two separate occasions, relatives of Rees claimed their ancestor was the namesake of the city. F. K. Bull of South Carolina (Rees' great-grandson) told an Orlando reporter of a story in 1955; years later, Charles M. Bull Jr., of Orlando (Rees' great-great-grandson) offered local historians similar information. Unlike Orlando Reeves, who cannot be traced to any historical record, the record is considerable that Orlando Rees did exist and was in Florida during that time. For example, in 1832, John James Audubon met with Rees in his large estate at Spring Garden, about 45 minutes from Orlando.
The final variation has the city named after the protagonist in the Shakespeare play As You Like It.
In 1975, Judge Donald A. Cheney put forth a new version of the story in an Orlando Sentinel article. Cheney (a local historian and then chairman of the county historical commission) recounted a story told to him by his father, Judge John Moses Cheney (a major figure in Orlando's history, who arrived in Orlando in 1885).
The elder Cheney recounted that another gentleman at that time, James Speer, proposed the name Orlando after the character in As You Like It. According to Cheney, Speer, "was a gentleman of culture and an admirer of William Shakespeare ..." Quoting a letter that Speer wrote, "Orlando was a veritable Forest of Arden, the locale of As You Like It." Speer's descendants have also confirmed this version of the naming and the legend has continued to grow.
This account also has some validity in that, as mentioned above, Speer was instrumental in changing the name of the settlement from Jernigan to Orlando, though he may have used the Orlando Reeves legend in lieu of his true intent to use the Shakespearean character. According to yet another version of the story, Orlando may have been the name of one of his employees. One of downtown Orlando's major streets is named Rosalind Avenue; Rosalind is the heroine of As You Like It, but this could also be a coincidence.
In 1823, the Treaty of Moultrie Creek created a Seminole reservation encompassing much of central Florida, including the area that would become Orlando. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized relocation of the Seminole from Florida to Oklahoma, and along with the enforcement of the Treaty of Payne's Landing led to the Second Seminole War. In 1842, white settlement in the area was encouraged by the Armed Occupation Act. The first settler, Aaron Jernigan of Camden County, Georgia, arrived the following year and settled near Lake Holden.
Mosquito County was renamed Orange County in 1845, with the county seat shortly thereafter relocated to Mellonville, a few miles west of Sanford. By 1856, settlement had begun in earnest in the interior of the county and a more centrally located Courthouse was sought. The new town of Orlando, laid out in 1857, consisted of four streets surrounding a courthouse square. The fledgling village suffered greatly during the Union blockade. The Reconstruction Era brought on a population explosion, resulting in the incorporation of the Town of Orlando on July 31, 1875, with 85 residents (22 voters). For a short time in 1879, the town revoked its charter, and was subsequently reincorporated. Orlando was established as a city in 1885.
The period from 1875 to 1895 is remembered as Orlando's Golden Era, when it became the hub of Florida's citrus industry. The period ended with the Great Freeze of 1894–95, which forced many owners to give up their independent citrus groves, thus consolidating holdings in the hands of a few "citrus barons", who shifted operations south, primarily around Lake Wales in Polk County. The freeze caused many in Florida, including many Orlandoans, to move elsewhere, mostly to the North, California, or the Caribbean.
Notable homesteaders in the area included the Curry family. Through their property in east Orlando flowed the Econlockhatchee River, which travelers crossed by fording. This was commemorated by the street's name, Curry Ford Road. Also, just south of the Orlando International Airport in the Boggy Creek area are 150 acres (0.61 km2) of property homesteaded in the late 19th century by the Ward family. This property is still owned by the Ward family, and can be seen from southbound flights out of Orlando International Airport immediately on the south side of SR 417.
Orlando became a popular resort during the years between the Spanish–American War and World War I. Orlando later experienced extensive housing development during the 1920s Florida land boom, causing land prices to soar. During this period, dozens of neighborhoods in the vicinity of downtown were constructed. The boom ended when several hurricanes hit Florida in the late 1920s, along with the Great Depression.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Orlando, Florida”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.