Indoor Foliage Capital of the World: How Ferns Built Apopka
From 1922 Fern City to tissue-culture labs — the century of greenhouses behind Apopka’s title, and where a visitor can actually see the story in public.
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History
Soldier City: How Union Veterans Founded St. Cloud in 1909
Thirty-five thousand acres, a lottery in Atlantic City and a town built by Civil War veterans in their seventies: the G.A.R. Hall, the Heritage Museum and Mount Peace tell the strangest founding story in greater Orlando.
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The Withers-Maguire House and the History Ocoee Now Tells Out Loud
The 1888 citrus-era house on Starke Lake preserves Ocoee’s early story — and the city’s public reckoning with the 1920 massacre is the other, necessary half of its history.
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Casselberry, Explained: Ferns, Lakes and an Art Campus Behind City Hall
Thirty lakes, seventeen parks, a sculpture garden around City Hall and a ranked brewery on SR 436: how Casselberry — Seminole County’s fern-born crossroads city — actually works, and how to do it well.
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The Celery Fortune Under Heathrow: How a Pizza-Roll King’s Farm Became a Gated Town
Before the guard gates and fairways, Heathrow’s muck grew celery for Chun King. How Jeno Paulucci — who sold his pizza-roll empire in 1985 — turned Seminole County farmland into a gated community the same year.
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The Other Lake Mary: A Walk Through the Historic Core
Before the office parks there was a railroad village. Bent’s Station, Crystal Lake and a 1926 museum tell the story downtown still lives in.
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The Course That Isn’t There Anymore: Hunter’s Creek Golf Club, 1986–2021
Lloyd Clifton’s pine-and-lakes championship course was a founding amenity of Hunter’s Creek — and it closed in 2021, whatever the stale listings say. A history, and a correction.
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Walking the Brick Streets: A Field Guide to the Lake Eola Heights Historic District
487 contributing buildings, seven architectural styles and one very determined neighborhood association. How to read Orlando’s first historic district — designated 1989, National Register 1992 — on foot.
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The Swan Boats Still Sail: Lake Eola’s Floating Icons, and the Flock Behind Them
The pedal-powered swans have circled Lake Eola since 1925; the living flock arrived in 1922. In 2026 their stories split — the boats sail on, the flock was relocated after an avian flu outbreak. Where both stand now.
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Old Davenport: A 1927 City Hall, a Volunteer Museum and a Blueberry Winery
The National Register historic district, the Historical Society’s museum in the Peter Rust Civic Center, and Polk County’s only winery — the old town, walked properly.
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