Mount Dora, Florida: A Short History

by James M. Laux

How a unique small town in Florida has thrived since the 1870s. The Central Florida town of Mount Dora grew with oranges and retirees. It survived killing freezes and the expansion of nearby Orlando to become an oasis of charm and attractiveness, a real community rather than an accidental collection of transients. How did Mount Dora get its name? Who settled there and why? How did the white and black races get along? How did its people make their living? What is it about Mount Dora that attracts thousands of visitors every year? How did it avoid succumbing to automobile traffic? How has it managed residential and commercial growth? How did it keep its downtown attractive and profitable? How does it expect to retain its traditional character?

Genres: History

Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earlier histories of Mount Dora are, for the most part, personal stories: tales from early inhabitants about themselves and those whom they knew, together with what they heard about earlier days growing up. Laux asks questions as a professional historian, and he writes a real history of the town from its earliest (European derived) inhabitants till 2000. You will find fewer of the charming tales that fill others' pages, but you will see a town grow through stages from being a hamlet, to a tiny unintended resort for well-to-do Northerners, to a substantial citrus community. Its early movers and shakers came to the area because there were opportunities to make money (hotels and citrus ranching were the largest industries), but their patrons and their wives (nearly all those developers were men, except Annie Stone Donnelly, who brought financial substance to her second marriage, to builder J.P. Donnelly) hungered after cultural niceties, always a major subtheme in the town's growth. Though Donnelly and others tried to woo a college to the town, Rollins went to Winter Park instead, and the there has been an unstated but persistent rivalry between the two cities for a century, even in the size of their famous art fairs. In the latter half of the last century, Mount Dora grew rapidly in civic sophistication, developing governmental structures and a quest for its own future that have shaped the bustling and carefully nurtured city of today.