HISTORY: West Orange County of yesteryear for week of March 6, 2025

OLD TIMES / THE WAYS WE WERE

90 years ago

An occasion of much interest to several Lakeview High students was the Honor Society banquet at Orlando High School. Members attending from LHS were Tex Brown, Juanita Hall, Mary Neel, Alma Bekemeyer and Frances Peters.

80 years ago

Fulmer Cleaners, located on North Main Street, enlarged its plant, adding two more rooms using concrete blocks in the construction.

The A&P on Plant Street redecorated its store building inside and out with a new coat of white paint and red trim, “which adds materially to the neatness of this establishment.”

50 years ago

For the third straight year, the city of Ocoee won the President’s Trophy for its community exhibit at the Central Florida Fair. Ocoee received the greatest number of points to win the trophy, earning seven first-place ribbons, six second place, two third place, one fourth place and one fifth place. The firsts were won in the categories for best decorated booth, citrus plants, ferns, pasture grass, living palms, landscape plants and flowering plants. A second-place ribbon was earned for the bicentennial display, as the booth was decorated in red, white and blue paneling. Jack Spivey, Paul Smallwood and Ed Watkins served as co-chairmen for the Ocoee Lions Club-sponsored project. More than 2,000 man hours of work was spent in preparing the booth.

The Winter Garden community exhibit, sponsored by the Winter Garden Lions Club, at the Central Florida Fair won two first-place ribbons for citrus fruits and honey as well as three second-place ribbons for home-canned products; grain, hay and forage; and living palms.

Tammy Huckabee made history as the first female member of the West Orange Little League. She played with the Pirates in the season opener against the Cards.

45 years ago

The Bay Hill Classic got underway with Bob Hope and James Garner playing in the Pro-Am. Beautiful weather turned cold and windy by the weekend. Dave Eichelberger was the tournament winner.

40 years ago

Fuzzy Zoeller was the winner of the Hertz Bay Hill Classic. Another big winner was Orlando Regional Medical Center’s planned children’s prenatal unit, with plans to name it Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital.

20 years ago

For the first time in its 29-year history, the West Orange High School varsity basketball team was playing for the state championship. Ever since Warrior junior Tyrone Curnell scored the game-winning shot with 4 seconds left in the regional final against Oviedo High, the WOHS student body had been buzzing.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

MARCH 6, 1975

Get your scissors out; we have coupons to clip! Food World advertised its weekly sales in The Winter Garden Times, and the March 6, 1975, edition included a 20-cents-off coupon for Pillsbury Hungry Jack Light Pancake Mix (regularly 79 cents) and a coupon worth 35 cents on the purchase of a half gallon of Sealtest Ice Cream.

Thirsty? Shoppers could get a 46-ounce can of Hawaiian Punch for 63 cents, five RC Diet Rite Cola 32-ounce bottles for $1, a 32-ounce bottle of Pepsi or 7-Up for 29 cents or a one-pound bag of Maxwell House fresh coffee grounds for 99 cents.

Feeling healthy? Three pounds of apples were 59 cents, broccoli was 59 cents, three pounds of cooking onions were 35 cents, five pounds of oranges were 59 cents, and a pound of green beans was 33 cents.

Meats were on sale too: Barbecuers could get one pound of short ribs for 69 cents, a pot roast perfect for Sunday meals was 89 cents per pound, and a sirloin steak was just over $1 per pound.

FROM THE WINTER GARDEN HERITAGE FOUNDATION ARCHIVES

Many of the streets in Winter Garden are named after local families who left their mark on the development of the city. Pictured are W.L. Story; his wife, Mattie; and their children, Kate, Lena and Bill. They posed for this portrait with the family car in March 1913 at the southwest corner of Story and Kate S. Burch roads, where their home stood. The latter byway, which once ran from Plant Street south along the west side of today’s Hyde Park, no longer exists.

Story Road was renamed for the family, originally having been known as Washington Street, which was itself an extension of the street in Orlando that bears the same name. The road originally was platted as State Road 22 and ran from Indian River City on the east coast to well past Clermont.