What’s Central Florida’s oldest tourist attraction? One strong candidate is hidden in plain sight, right in the middle of Winter Park. On Jan. 1, 1938, the Winter Park Scenic Boat Tour launched its voyage into history.
The volunteer members of the Fort Mose Historical Society in St. Augustine have an important story to tell of courage, perseverance and freedom on the original Underground Railroad, which ran south into Florida.
About a century ago, early auto tourists began traveling to Florida in winter, bringing meals along in tin cans. They eventually brought along cozy travel trailers, creating a heritage carried on by today’s Tin Can Tourists, a national club.
Many American families once had stereoscopes in their parlors, where they amused themselves on long winter days by looking at eye-popping, 3-D images of places they hoped to visit, including Florida. Shivering in northern cities in January, they could imagine being surrounded by steamboats and citrus groves, silvery lakes and sandy city streets. Postcards, too, spread images of Florida far and wide. If they didn’t have the snap of 3-D, the scribbled text messages they carried offer fascinations for present-day collectors.
The history of celebrating New Year’s Eve in Florida includes many gathering places, including Orlando’s Opera House in the 1880s, a South Florida shantyboat, Orlando’s Davis Armory, the Coliseum on North Orange Avenue, the Flamingo Club just east of town, and Rosie O’Grady’s Good Time Emporium, which opened in July 1974 and became an Orlando institution.