Orlando History

Orlando history dates back to several thousand years, but for brevity sake, we will examine the events over the 20th century and more recently in the 21st century.

It is necessary to speak about the juicy citrus fruits when we are discussing Orlando history. During the 1880s, citrus cultivation came to Orlando in a big way and soon it changed the fortunes of Orlando topsy turvey. In less than a decade, Orlando was a full grown city with churches, hotels, schools, office buildings and all the paraphernalia befitting a growing city.

Soon, Orlando travel tourists started recognizing Orlando as a nice place to visit during summer. But this bright face in Orlando history was marred by the 3 day freeze of 1894 which destroyed millions of dollars worth of property.

The destruction and resultant losses were so colossal that it took more than 15 years for Orlando to recover from the aftermath of the freeze. But, it succeeded in putting the Orlando history on a superior growth trajectory which continues even to date.

The period between 1910 and 1920 saw a huge population spurt in Orlando history and at the end of the period, its population almost doubled. The 1920s also witnessed a huge building boom in Orlando, when several of the prestigious buildings came into existence. The city continued its march on the path of progress and 1968 witnessed the Florida Technological University opening its doors (presently known as University of Central Florida). The Orlando Naval training centre was also opened in the same year.

It was in 1989 that the Disney-MGM Studios and theme park opened itself to public. From then on, Orlando has grown at an amazing space, soon becoming the most sought after Orlando FL travel tourist destination, not only in America, but across several nations.

Towards the turn of the 20th century, technology driven industries like IT too was bitten by the Orlando bug and soon Orlando became a major hub for software development and other related IT related industries.