- July 14, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
The Tavares & Gulf Railroad depot was built in 1913 to replace an earlier 1899 station. The railroad had only 38 miles of track but was active and productive. The T&G later became part of the Seaboard Air Line System, and its last run was in 1969. The depot was purchased in 1979 by the Central Florida Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and opened as a railroad museum in 1983. The Winter Garden Light and Water Company plant to the south began operation in 1913; it was demolished in 1929. A fire station was built in 1938 on the same site. It later operated as part of the Winter Garden Recreation Department, and, today, it is home to the Winter Garden Art Association’s SOBO Gallery.
This 2008 photograph shows an empty lot between the railroad museum and the former fire station.
Plant Street from Boyd to Main streets was Winter Garden’s main shopping district before highways and shopping malls. Saturday afternoons and evenings were so busy in the 1940s and 1950s that people would park their cars in the morning to ensure a prime spot in the evening. In this 1948 photo, the Tibbals Rexall Drugstore and Leader’s Department Store anchored the far corner of Plant and Main. Cappleman’s Real Estate and Insurance Co., Joiner Auto Parts, Grogan Jeweler, George Walker’s Westinghouse Electric Co., Western Auto and Tom Ellis Firestone are visible.
In 2008, the businesses along this strip included Shirley’s Trailside Antiques, Mooncricket Café, Winter Garden Pizza Company and Southern Comfort.
A photo from1930 shows Mack Nye’s Sunoco gas station on the northeast corner of Plant Street and Lakeview Avenue. The Bray Hardware building and the adjacent Winter Garden Theatre on the west side were destroyed in a 1934 fire. To the east of Bray’s was the original site of Pounds Motor Company before it moved to the corner space to the west. This building was demolished in the 1970s and was a parking lot until 2007.
In 2007, an office building with a ground floor restaurant was constructed on the site of the former Bray Hardware and original Winter Garden Theatre.
Before Winter Garden was established in 1903, this area often was called South Apopka. The South Apopka Supply Company, at 24-26 S. Main St., was constructed in 1915 and once contained boarding rooms on the second floor with a variety of businesses on the ground floor. The building to the north is the Dillard and Boyd Building, and farther north is the Shelby Hotel.
The old South Apopka Supply Company, the Dillard and Boyd Building and the former Shelby Hotel (now Tony’s Liquors), are three of the oldest buildings in Winter Garden. You can faintly see some of the old letters from the supply company below the row of windows.
The Tremaine & Boyd apartment complex and several shops and restaurants are located at the former site of the Winter Garden Light and Water Company plant.
Today, this section of downtown includes Three Birds Café, Polka Dotz Boutique, Mooncricket Café, Attic Door and AJ’s Pizza.
The same but different — that seemed to be the consensus of the residents viewing the photographs at the opening of the new exhibition in Winter Garden City Hall Thursday, June 12.
“Winter Garden’s Renaissance: A Historic Timeline” debuted this month, and the photographs chronicling downtown’s resurgence, with now-and-then photos, will remain on display through the end of July.
The images and descriptions tell about the people who helped with Winter Garden’s rebirth following a period of citrus freezes, a polluted Lake Apopka, abandoned railroad tracks and the decay of the downtown commercial district.
After years of existing with just a few businesses, the historic downtown district slowly made its resurgence with funding and dedicated elected officials and businessmen and women. Today, it is a thriving and charming destination with dozens of restaurants and shopping experiences.
In 2008, the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation collaborated with Peter Schreyer, a documentary photographer and the former CEO and executive director of Crealdé School of Art, on a photographic exhibition of Winter Garden then and now. The original exhibition was underwritten by Dr. John Cappleman and displayed in the Edgewater Hotel lobby. The 20 framed prints later were hung in the physician’s office.
Ten of those frames were temporarily hung this month at City Hall, and they tell the city’s renaissance story through 2008. Will McCoy, Winter Garden Heritage Foundation writer and curator, updated the exhibition to reflect downtown today.
“Having personally witnessed the incredible renaissance of Winter Garden over the last three decades, I am filled with pride as we unveil the Winter Garden Renaissance exhibition,” said Kristi Karst Gomen, executive director of the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation, at the opening reception. “This exhibit is a heartfelt tribute to our community’s journey and clearly highlights the vital role our foundation plays in preserving history for future generations.”
Jim Crescitelli, director of operations and programming for the WGHF, also spoke at the opening.
“People in this town are immersed in a century’s worth of architecture and are always attracted to take pictures of the buildings, to draw the buildings, to paint the buildings,” he said. “I have to thank Peter Schreyer for the exhibit he did with the WGHF with Kay Cappleman back in 2008. ... And now we have a retrospective of the way the town looked like in 2008. The exhibit Will McCoy wrote (shows) what the buildings look like today … and the history of those buildings today provides quite a retrospective.”
Prior to the opening of the Winter Garden Renaissance exhibition at City Hall, interested folks embarked on a “Stroll Through Time” walking tour of downtown Winter Garden hosted by the WGHF. Crescitelli and McCoy took two groups through downtown, remarking on some of the city’s oldest buildings that still stand today. The walk ended at Winter Garden City Hall in time for the exhibition opening reception.
“We are very excited to display this exhibition highlighting the transformation that Winter Garden has undergone over the decades,” McCoy said. “Winter Garden residents know well that this city is a special place. Not only because we still enjoy these historic structures, but (also) because Winter Garden’s people have unwaveringly dedicated themselves to preserving the character of the town. This project makes clear how that effort has restored the places citizens visit every day.”
