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100
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https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/c120e160eb2e8fc0ce6ac7264dbc12fa.pdf
df7400b08bd76fd5ff1eea67da3d1323
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oviedo Collection
Alternative Title
Oviedo Collection
Subject
Oviedo (Fla.)
Description
Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the history of Oviedo, Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around.
Oviedo began on the south shore of Lake Jessup as a settlement called Solaria's Wharf. Some of its early settlers include Dr. Henry Foster, Joseph Watts, and Steen Nelson. Citrus and celery dominated the area's farmland, although Central Florida suffered a severe freeze in 1894. Oviedo suffered another disaster in 1914 when a fire wiped out much of the downtown section. Disaster hit again in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. That same year, Oviedo's fruit crops were decimated by a fruit fly infestation. Another fire destroyed the Wheeler Fertilizer Plant in 1946. Nonetheless, Oviedo continued to grow, with new paved roads going to Geneva and Chuluota and the opening of the Citizens Bank of Oviedo in 1948. In 1949, Oviedo began receing once-a-day bus serviece to Orlando from Greyhound Lines. By 1950, Oviedo was the second largest town in Seminole County, following Sanford. The Oviedo City Hall was built that same year and in 1968, Florida Technological University (present-day University of Central Florida) opened, bringing new residents to the area.
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/44" target="_blank">Seminole County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2494" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2494.
Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified], 1979.
"<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68.
"Oviedo Began as Solaria's Wharf." <em>The Oviedo Heritage</em>, June 30, 1977.
Contributor
Cepero, Laura Lynn
Cepero, Nancy Lynn
Cepero, Ray
Coverage
Oviedo, Florida
Has Part
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Moving Image
A series of visual representations that, when shown in succession, impart an impression of motion.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oral Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler III
Alternative Title
Oral History, Benjamin Franklin Wheeler III
Subject
Oviedo (Fla.)
Citrus--Florida
Citrus fruit industry--Florida
Packing-houses--United States
Agriculture--Florida
Celery
Description
An oral history interview of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler III, a descendant of the Wheeler and Lawton families in Oviedo. The interview was conducted by Desta Lee Horner at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida, on June 18th, 2019. Some of the topics covered include the family history of the Lawtons and Wheelers, the significance of the pine timber industry in Oviedo, the career path of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr., the role of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr. in the incorporation and development of Oviedo, withstanding freezes and destruction of crops and trees, shipping citrus on the railroads and the decline of the citrus industry in Oviedo, working in packing houses, varieties of citrus production in Oviedo, transitioning from citrus to celery production, how packing houses served a social function, building a railroad on muck land and dealing with derailed trains, how Seminole County was formed and the consequences of its formation, George Kelsey and enforcing the law in a small town, eccentric characters and interesting stories from Oviedo, how churches influenced life in Oviedo, how the Oviedo lights became an urban legend, how being a bedroom community shaped the City of Oviedo, how the Oviedo Fire Department evolved, his experience with race relations in Oviedo, how Alafaya Trail became a paved road, deciding on where to build Florida Technological University, and his closing remarks.
Table Of Contents
0:00:00 The family history of the Lawtons and Wheelers <br />0:02:58 The significance of the pine timber industry in Oviedo <br />0:03:38 The career path of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr. <br />0:07:30 The role of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr. in the incorporation and development of Oviedo <br />0:09:32 Withstanding freezes and destruction of crops and trees <br />0:10:24 Shipping citrus on the railroads and the decline of the citrus industry in Oviedo <br />0:14:30 Working in packing houses <br />0:16:35 Varieties of citrus production in Oviedo <br />0:18:11 Transitioning from citrus to celery production <br />0:25:25 How packing houses served a social function <br />0:26:35 Building a railroad on muck land and dealing with derailed trains <br />0:30:51 How Seminole County was formed and the consequences of its formation <br />0:39:08 George Kelsey and enforcing the law in a small town <br />0:40:41 Eccentric characters and interesting stories from Oviedo <br />0:43:32 How churches influenced life in Oviedo <br />0:45:17 How the Oviedo lights became an urban legend <br />0:47:10 How being a bedroom community shaped the City of Oviedo <br />0:48:29 How the Oviedo Fire Department evolved <br />0:50:46 How being a bedroom community shaped the City of Oviedo (continued) <br />0:53:14 His experience with race relations in Oviedo <br />0:57:25 How Alafaya Trail became a paved road <br />0:59:19 Deciding on where to build Florida Technological University <br />1:01:28 Closing remarks
Abstract
Oral history interview of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler III. Interview conducted by Desta Lee Horner in Orlando, Florida, on June 18, 2019.
Type
Moving Image
Source
Wheeler III, Benjamin Franklin. Interviewed by Desta Lee Horner, June 18, 2019. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida.
Requires
Multimedia software, such as <a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" target="_blank"> QuickTime</a>.
<a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES.
Has Format
Digital transcript of original 1-hour, 3-minute, and 31-seconds oral history: Wheeler III, Benjamin Franklin. Interviewed by Desta Lee Horner. Audio record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>, Orlando, Florida.
Coverage
Five Points Operations Complex, Sanford, Florida
Florida Technological University, Orlando, Florida
Holler Chevrolet, Winter Park, Florida
Memorial Building, Oviedo, Florida
Nelson and Company Packing Plant, Oviedo, Florida
Oviedo, Florida
Oviedo Depot, Oviedo, Florida
Oviedo Drug and Meat World, Oviedo, Florida
Creator
Wheeler, Benjamin Franklin III
Horner, Desta
Publisher
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>
Date Created
2019-06-18
Date Copyrighted
2019-06-18
Format
video/mp4
application/pdf
Extent
1.83 GB
281 KB
Medium
1-hour, 3-minute, and 31-seconds audio recording
31-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Benjamin Franklin Wheeler III and Desta Lee Horner and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>.
Rights Holder
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES</a>
Accrual Method
Item Creation
Curator
Cravero, Geoffrey
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
Robison, Jim. "<a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1991-01-27-9101260420-story.html" target="_blank">War Forced Lawtons to Leave Georgia Children's Families Played Big Role in Building Town</a>." <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>, January 27, 1991. Accessed July 23, 2019. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1991-01-27-9101260420-story.html.
"<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/oviedo-biography-of-a-town/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979.
Robison, Jim. <a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/collections/show/147" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012.
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="https://youtu.be/J4b2TL_y3oM">Oral Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin Wheeler III</a>
Transcript
Horner
My name is Desta Horner from the Oviedo Historical Society and I’m here with Ben Wheeler, whose family had been residents in Oviedo for many generations. We’re gonna talk about the history of Oviedo. This interview is being conducted at the University of Central Florida in collaboration with the RICHES program.
Ben Wheeler’s been around a long time. Tell me something about you and your family.
Wheeler
Well, my earliest ancestor t—to come here was a Civil War widow named Narcissa Melissa Lawton . She had several children, one of which married my great-grandfather, John Thomas Wheeler. Um, they moved to Dade City and he had a stroke. He was a sawmill man. And he had a stroke and died. So R. W. Lawton, who would have been Narcissa’s brother, sent one of the Aulins—I think it was Theodore —to Dade City with a two-wheel oxcart. And loaded them up, whatever little bit they had, which probably wasn’t much, and brought ‘em back to Oviedo [sniffs].
Horner
Who married Wheeler in order to get the Wheeler in your name? One of the Lawtons married a Wheeler?
Wheeler
Yes. Clara Isabelle Lawton married John Thomas . Um, she was—no. She wasn’t a widow. Narcissa was a widow.
Horner
Mhmm.
Wheeler
And this was her daughter.
Horner
So she married a Wheeler.
Wheeler
Yes.
Horner
And that—was that Ben Wheeler I? The Ben Wheeler?
Wheeler
His name was Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, Sr.
Horner
How many more Benjamin Franklin Wheelers are there?
Wheeler
Two more.
Horner
Two [laughs].
Wheeler
My father and me.
Horner
Oh. Okay. So the, uh—so the Whee—how did the Wheelers get here? I mean, the Lawtons got here after the Civil War. Where did B.F. Wheeler, Sr. come from?
Wheeler
W—w—well, John Thomas, who was B.F., Sr.’s father,…
Horner
Ah.
Wheeler
…came here after the Civil War. And he claimed a homestead and sawed all the timber off of it. And once the timber was gone, he let it grow back. And that’s when he moved to Dade City[, Florida].
Horner
Well, the timber was always a big—particularly pine timber…
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
…was always important in Oviedo. What did they do with the pine—with the pine? Cut it up? Saw it up? What do you do?
Wheeler
It was used mostly for lumber. The first thing they did was chip it for turpentine. And once the trees had g—given up all their turpentine, then they would cut ‘em and make lumber out of ‘em.
Horner
Were there a lot of sawmills? I read one place where there were five sawmills in the area. I…
Wheeler
I couldn’t swear to the number, but there were several.
Horner
In order to slice those into planks for…
Wheeler
Right.
Horner
…houses.
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
Kay. Well, Wheeler set up a business. Who did he set up a business with? What—what business did he get into?
Wheeler
Well, his father died when he was 11. And he had a younger brother and a mother to support. And R.W. Lawton brought him back here. And he just took any kind of work he could get [clears throat]. One of the things he said he did was hoe orange trees. There was a big grove out there where Winter Springs High School is now. And he said he would walk out there, hoe trees all day and walk back for a penny a piece.
And there was a—the Coast Line—the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad had a—a depot agent here named Mr. Crutchfield. And he and my grandad took a shine to each other. And he let him hang around the depot. And he taught him Morse code. Let him help sweeping[sic] and whatever needed to be doing[sic]. And my grandfather ended up being the depot agent when Mr. Crutchfield retired.
Well, as depot agent, he made a princely sum of $15 a month, which r—really—a lot of people couldn’t even get a job. But he got that. And that’s when he endeavored to buy the property on—south of Lake Jesup, where the big brick house is.
Horner
Where the Evans-Wheeler house …
Wheeler
Right. And he obliged to pay $5 a month on a mortgage. Well, he said there were a half a dozen old tangerine trees on the place. And started taking care of ‘em. And about the second year he was attending to ‘em, they yielded six boxes—which, a box is two bushels—of tangerines. And he took ‘em down to Nelson Brothers Packing House and sold ‘em and got $5 a box for ‘em. Now, that’s like six months’ worth of mortgage payments. And he said that got his attention. And as time went by, um, Mr. Fred Nelson wanted to get out. And so, my grandfather bought his portion of Nelson Brothers. And later, Mr. Steen Nelson wanted to get out. So he bought his portion and then he named it Nelson and Company.
Horner
But, actually, it was Wheeler who owned it. Why didn’t he change the name to Wheeler?
Wheeler
Because the brands they had were already established. And he didn’t want to start over.
Horner
So everybody up North that this was—the fruit was shipped to…
Wheeler
Right.
Horner
…knew that name: Nelson.
Wheeler
The brand name was White Rose.
Horner
When there was a White Rose label…
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
…you knew it came from a good place [laughs]. W—well, what business did your—your grandfather get into if he owned a—the citrus packing house, Nelson and Son—and Company? What else did he do?
Wheeler
He was a real forward-thinking man. And he saw opportunity where a lot of people didn’t. He, um—he was instrumental in getting Oviedo incorporated as a city. It was one square mile.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
But the relations with Sanford as the county seat were such that he didn’t foresee Oviedo getting a fair shake out of the county. And so, he got it—got Oviedo incorporated.
He was also on the county commission. He, um, was the driving force behind the county buying what’s now called the—well, what is it called? The Five Points Complex ? Eh, the original purpose of it was to have, um, indigent home and, um, pauper’s cemetery. That grew into being an old folks home. And they grazed—they raised all their own food.
And then years later, the—the county began moving their facilities out there. Their fire department and courthouse and jail and animal control.
Horner
And sitting in the middle of all of that official administration is still what was the old folks home.
Wheeler
Yes.
Horner
It’s still there.
Wheeler
Yes.
Horner
It’s never demolished.
Wheeler
It’s now part of—it’s now the home of the Museum of Seminole County History.
Horner
One of the things about the citrus industry in Oviedo was the freezes that would happen regularly. How did people withstand the destroyed[sic] of—of their crop? And sometimes even destruction of their trees?
Wheeler
Well, all of ‘em didn’t stand it. Um, there was a disastrous freeze in 1890-f—December of ’94 and February of ’95. And i—it was—it was destructive enough that a lot of people just gave up and moved. Uh, there are stories about houses with dishes still on the table and food in ‘em. And th—they were just left. People just le—just lost heart and left.
B—but the—the few that remained eventually did come back. Uh, my grandfather being one. Mr. Lee—C. S. Lee being another one. And there’s probably some names that I don’t recall now.
Horner
What about the Clonts’s? Were they doing c—uh, cel—um, citrus at that time?
Wheeler
No. The Clonts’s came in 1924.
Horner
Mkay. Mm. Well, when you have this packing—and Wheeler—I mean Nelson and Company packed fruit…
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
…in these crates to send north. Um, how could you send them north? On the steamboats that originally plied the s—Lake Jesup? Or how did they get them up north to New York?
Wheeler
I’m sure at some point they shipped ‘em on a steamboat. But my recollection is the railroads.
Horner
And which railroads did…
Wheeler
Well, there were two that came to—to Lake Charm. That was the Atlantic Coast Line and there was the Seaboard Air Line. And they both had s—spurs that went down into Black Hammock to the celery pre-coolers and washhouses. At one time, there was[sic] two trains a day—one on each railroad out of Oviedo—of nothing but produce [sneezes]. Excuse me.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
There’s a lot of, uh, confusion about the two railroads because they later merged and became Seaboard Coast Line. And then they was[sic] incorporated into the family lines. And then it was Seaboard’s system. And then it became CSX [Corporation], which is what it is now.
Horner
When did those trains stop running through Oviedo? ‘Cause there’s no trains there now.
Wheeler
I’d say in the early eighties.
Horner
Why didn’t we need the trains anymore?
Wheeler
Well, all the produce traffic had gone to trucks. The—the railroads were so contrary about the service that people got tired of it. And, uh, at that time [sniffs], the Northern railroads—the Pennsylvania, the B&O —those lines were having terrific union problems. And our stuff would get to Washington, D.C. and sit.
Horner
So Oviedo was in trouble. They couldn’t get it to market.
Wheeler
Right. Right.
Horner
Well, there was another train in Oviedo. The Dinky Line.
Wheeler
That was the Seaboard.
Horner
Was part of the Seaboard.
Wheeler
Yes.
Horner
Mm.
Wheeler
It had previously been the Florida Central and Peninsular [Railroad] [sniffs]. And the tracks were so raggedy that they were forever and a day getting derailed.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
And the local folks nicknamed it “The Friends Come and Push” [laughs].
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
But a lot of people think the whole system was the Dinky Line and it was not [sniffs].
Horner Just the part that ran from Oviedo to Orlando.
Wheeler
Right.
Horner
Okay. How long did the Dinky Line last? That’s not…
Wheeler
Well, it became part of the…
Horner
Ah.
Wheeler
…CSX. And so they all came up about the same time.
Horner
Okay. Why did our—we don’t do and sell and pack citrus anymore in Oviedo. And it was the big moneymaker. What happened?
Wheeler
Because of the freezes and the greening virus [sniffs].
Horner
Shut down the whole citrus…
Wheeler
Shut…
Horner
…part.
Wheeler
… down the whole thing. Statewide production is down 75% now.
Horner
Um, you were talking about—the trains would go to the packing houses. What—how were the packing houses run? Who did the—you just bring it in from the fields and what do you do with it?
Wheeler
Bring the fruit it from the field?
Horner
Mhmm.
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
Just pluck it off the tree?
Wheeler
And picked and—and put in boxes. Those two bushel boxes. Brought to the packing house. And then it was graded. And washed. And cleaned. And packed by size into shipping containers. And those went on the railroad.
Horner
Just loaded them up on the railroad.
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
But it—yeah. I heard about that. Putting them in by size.
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
If it was a bunch of tangerines, you could fit 120.
Wheeler
So many. Depending on the size. Um, and that was determined by the USDA .
Horner
Mm.
Wheeler
You had to have an inspector all—all the time. And the sizes were [sniffs]—on tangerines they were 80s, 120s, 176s, 210 and 246.
Horner
Wow. They must have been small tangerines.
Wheeler
They were. They were little bitty fellas.
Horner
[laughs]. What if you had a grapefruit?
Wheeler
Now, we didn’t pack many grapefruit. I’m not real up on the s—sizes on them. I know there was a 40. And a 48. I think the other one was 72.
Horner
[Inaudible]—those are the small grapefruit. Get 72.
Wheeler
Oranges—round oranges were 80s, 100s, 120s, um…
Horner
Did that mean that we had different varieties of oranges?
Wheeler
Oh, yeah.
Horner
We do.
Wheeler
Sure.
Horner
What varieties did we make—did we s—grow?
Wheeler
Well, we had tangerines. Dancy tangerines. Later, they developed the Orlando tangelo. And we had a world of them. And then, there was the early oranges like the Hamlin. And the pineapple. And the Parson Brown. And the Valencia. But they all come off at different times [sniffs].
Horner
Well, that’s nice. You don’t have to pack ‘em all at one…
Wheeler
No.
Horner
…time.
Wheeler
No. You can’t pack ‘em all at once.
Horner
[laughs]. Who did the work? Who w—who worked in the packing house? Who picked the—the fruit?
Wheeler
Well, you had picking crews. And you’d have a foreman. And he’d go out and recruit help to pick the fruit. And then, the packing house had their own crew that packed. And graded. And put crates together. And everything that it takes to run a packing house [sniffs].
Horner
Did they live in Oviedo?
Wheeler
Everybody did. Oviedo was never—until this latter day—a bedroom community. If you l—if you lived in Oviedo it was because you worked in Oviedo [sniffs].
Horner
Something to do with agriculture.
Wheeler
Unless you were a merchant or a preacher. Or something like that. Yes.
Horner
Um, but by the mid—beginning of the twentieth century, there was a shift from citrus to celery. Who brought celery to Oviedo? And why was Oviedo such a good place to grow celery?
Wheeler
Well, the first place it came to was Sanford. And at that time, they di—they thought that you couldn’t grow celery on muck. It had to be grown on sand, which that side of Lake Monroe there where Sanford is was ideally suited to that. And then the King Brothers decided they were gonna try it in Oviedo. And we had some sand land, but we had more muck than we did sand. And so when they found out they could grow it on the muck, then—it expanded rapidly then.
And celery was high dollar crop. Number one: it was considered kind of exotic [sniffs]. And number two: once the [Great] Depression hit, there was a tremendous dis—demand for celery because they used it in soup kitchens. It was, you know—it’ll stretch anything that you put it with [sniffs].
Then, about the time the Depression was over, World War II came along. And for reasons that I never understood, celery was not considered, um, necessary for the war effort. And so they didn’t impose any price ceilings on it. And the price of celery just went through the roof during those war years. And people made money just like going to town on a Saturday. Um, in 1929, Seminole County’s celery crop was worth about $15 million. Just the celery crop.
Horner
Well, I’d heard we’d been called the C—Celery Capital of the World for—[laughs].
Wheeler
Well, we were. They didn’t—there was no, uh, Zellwood. There was no everglades. The celery came from Seminole County.
Horner
Well, when you’re growing celery—it sounds like celery is a rather delicate…
Wheeler
It is.
Horner
…crop to grow.
Wheeler
And it takes a lot of water to grow it. And we had ample water supplies. We had the flowing wells, uh, to keep the fields wet. And it did well here.
Horner
And there were plenty of celery fields around Oviedo.
Wheeler
Oh, yeah.
Horner
[laughs]. Well, when you, uh—when you laid—put the celery out—I’ve heard that you have to put the celery out first in small plots. Then you pick ‘em up and replant them.
Wheeler
Yes. You plant seed beds and raise the plants up until they’re big enough to set out. And then you transplant ‘em to a—to the field.
Horner
And let ‘em grow.
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
Well, how did they get enough water to handle?
Wheeler
They developed a system of subsurface irrigation, which simply put was r—r—rows of tile under the ground. And the tile was not cemented together. It was just joint to joint. And you’d turn those wells on. And anywhere that there was a joint, water would seep out.
Horner
Sort of like a drip line…
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
…only large and…
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
underground.
Wheeler
And you could raise and lower the water level by, um, a system of stops. At the end of each row you had a—a concrete pocket and holes every so often. And however high you wanted the water to go, you stopped off the holes. And, of course, it would seek its own level.
Horner
Um, [inaudible]. [laughs]. Well, once your celery is grown in this muck land and you decide to harvest it, then what do you do with it?
Wheeler
You harvest it.
Horner
[laughs]. Yep. You’re gonna harvest it. What—but you gotta get it up north. How you gonna do it?
Wheeler
Well, [clears throat]…
Horner
Get to market [laughs].
Wheeler
…for many years, it was cut by hand, uh, and put in boxes. And then it went to this celery washhouse, where it was washed and packed. And, again, there were sizes for it. And then they would put it through a precooler bath to get it cold. And pack it into boxcars [sniffs]. And those boxcars had bunkers. One at each end. And they’d load it down with ice. And then they had a chipper there. And they would blow chipped ice all, eh—all over the top of the celery. They didn’t—they didn’t—a car wouldn’t hold it to the ceiling. There was about three feet from the top tier to the ceiling. And they’d blow that full of that chipped ice. And the cars had fans on ‘em that ran by a belt drive. And that circulated the cool and kept ‘em cool until they could get where they were going [sniffs].
Horner
So the celery was crisp when it got there.
Wheeler
Yeah. It had to be.
Horner
Otherwise, it would be all wilted. If you take it out of the field and you stuff it in a crate and haul it north, it’s gonna be all wilted [inaudible].
Wheeler
Oh, no. No. They didn’t do that.
Horner
[laughs]. You mentioned that there was a, um—a celery packing house out at Lake Charm. And then there was another celery packing house in Oviedo.
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
So you had two of them operating at the same time. Is that because there was so much celery?
Wheeler
Yeah. And there was[sic] more than two. Um, there were at least two more in Black Hammock. I’m not sure exactly—there might have been three. But, yes. There was a—well, how many pre-coolers would it take to make a trainload of celery [inaudible] every day?
Horner
I don’t know.
Wheeler
Well…
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
…just imagine.
Horner
How many cars would there be in a train? I mean, do they haul a hundred cars? Or…
Wheeler
It’d depend on the time of the year. But the trains weren’t near as big as they are now. There’d probably be ten or twelve.
Horner
Y—you told me that you used to go over to the packing house yourself when you were a young man.
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
What did it—what was it like? And what were the trains like?
Wheeler
Well, the packing house was just about the nerve center of town. If you were looking for somebody, you’d meet ‘em at the packing house. ‘Cause there was always somebody there. And we didn’t have, you know, City Hall and police department. And fire department. And Town House Restaurant. And all of that. You went to the packing house. You’d buy you a soda and sit down and sit down there with a package of Lance crackers and wait for ‘em to come if they wasn’t[sic] already there.
Horner
[laughs]. And the—and so they’d come and load the train. The packers would load the train. Everybody else is sort of sitting and, uh—or—and coming and going. And socializing.
Wheeler
But it was the same when the packing house wasn’t running. It was a meeting place.
Horner
Ah. Well, what about the trains themselves? Were they modern and useful?
Wheeler
Well, they weren’t modern like what we have now. Um, like I said, they had fans and belt drives for refrigeration [sniffs]. The…
Horner
You—you told me that the—the trains were—uh, the t—the tracks on the trains weren’t that good.
Wheeler
They weren’t. One of the big obstacles to settling this area was, um, wet, low ground. And the tracks—if you see the route of either one of those railroads, they snake like this. Because they go from one high spot to the next to stay out of that muck. And they put the ties down on the bare sand. They didn’t have any ballast or anything. And, uh, the rail was light [sniffs]. So the trains were slow. They did often times get off the ground—get on the ground. But that’s all there was.
Horner
Well, when the trains would get on the ground or derail like that, what do you do? I mean, everything stops [laughs]?
Wheeler
Until they get it back on the rail. Back then, they didn’t have cranes. And, uh, that’s—railroad had some wreckers, but they were too heavy to come out there on that light track. So it was a matter of a gang of big, strong men. And jacks. And wooden blocks to jack that wheel up. And then the locomotive would pull it just enough to get it guided back over on the track [sniffs].
Horner
So the boxcars had to be lifted up, so to speak.
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
And then placed back on the track.
Wheeler
Yeah. And oftentimes there would be, um, places that were missing spikes and things like that. They’d have to nail it back down so it wouldn’t roll again. It wasn’t—it was a case of the rails rolling over—is what derailed ‘em.
Horner
No wonder the trains stopped coming [laughs].
Wheeler
Well, that’s a—that is an ironic story. From the time the rails were laid in the 1880s until about 1980, those rails were the same rails that they put down originally. And rail is measured by the weight of a three-foot section. And those light rails were—some of ‘em were sixty pounds and some of ‘em were seventy pounds for three feet. And after all that time, they decided to re-lay the rails. And they put hundred-pound rail all the way from Sanford to Oviedo.
Now, the Seaboard had done theirs earlier. But this was the—the Atlantic Coast Line. And we found out later the government gave ‘em a grant to upgrade this line. And then like two or three years later, they got approval to abandon it. And they took all that up. And took it and moved it. Used it somewhere else [laughs].
Horner
[laughs]. So the whole tra—the whole tra—rail line from Oviedo to Sanford…
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
…was torn up.
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
[inaudible]. Um, when we talk about Oviedo and we talk about Seminole County, neither of them used to exist. You were mentioning, uh, that your—was it your grandfather who helped get Oviedo…
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
…incorporated as a town?
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
Where did Seminole County come from? ‘Cause it wasn’t originally Seminole County.
Wheeler
Well, you have to understand that because of the citrus and the celery and the other farming, Sanford swung a pretty big stick at that time. And they had tried [clears throat] two different times with a referendum to move the county seat from Orlando to Sanford. And failed. And Sanford—the people in Sanford thought that world emanated from Sanford. They were conceited and, um—I don’t know what else to call it. They…
Horner
Arro…
Wheeler
…thought…
Horner
… —arrogant.
Wheeler
They thought—yeah. Arrogant. And Sanford was supposed to be it. And it was it, as long as the things were coming by the steamboat. ‘Cause that was as far as they could come. But when the railroads came, that changed. And then along came Colonel Henry Sanford . And he was determined he was gonna make Sanford something.
And in 18—about 1875, there was an infamous murder trial in Orange County that was coming up between the carpet baggers and the locals. The carpet baggers had imposed a head tax on cattle. And this is right after the Civil War, now. And [clears throat], of course, a carpet bagger was in power. They had—they were the sheriff and done all of that. And he sent out some men to the outlying areas to collect that cattle tax. Well, they took the sheriff, tied him to an old bottom plow and dropped him in Lake, uh, Kissimmee.
Horner
So the sheriff’s now dead [inaudible].
Wheeler
Sheriff’s dead. And there’s this murder trial coming up of who supposedly did that. And all of a sudden, the courthouse burned down.
Horner
Now is this the courthouse in Sanford or the courthouse in…
Wheeler
No. It was…
Horner
…Orlando?
Wheeler
…Orlando. There was no courthouse in Sanford.
Horner
Oh. But now it’s burned down.
Wheeler
And it burned down on the eve of this trial. Well, whatever evidence they had, of course, was gone with it.
So the question arose as to building a new courthouse. And Henry Sanford went to Orlando to the Board of County Commissioners and proposed that, uh, the courthouse be built in Sanford, inferring that that’s where it should have been all the time. And he would give the land for the courthouse. Provided, of course, it was built in Sanford. Well, Mr. Jacob Summerlin , who was a leading citizen there, stood up and said, “Well, people are used to doing business in Orlando. And I think they ought to continue to do business in Orlando. And I’m gonna loan the county $10,000 to build a courthouse. And they can pay me back or not.” Well, of course, that dashed the hopes of—who wouldn’t turn—who wouldn’t, in that day and time, turn down that kind of money for a courthouse?
Well, that was the second time—no. That was the third time they had been thwarted. There were two referendums before that that didn’t garner enough support. So the courthouse was built in Orlando. And, not to be outdone, they formed—Sanford formed a Divide the County committee. And there were six or eight of the real prominent citizens in Sanford that spearheaded it. And they elected Forrest Lake as the, um, Representative for Orange County.
Horner
To the State Legislature.
Wheeler
To the State Legislature. And in 1913, he had gathered enough support that he put a bill through to create Seminole County. And according to the f—r—record, it passed way in the middle of the night on a—almost the last day of the session.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
And [clears throat] he rushed it over to the governor for f—signature before anybody could catch on to what was happening. And, uh, that became Seminole County.
Well, Orange County was fit to be tied because it—he was their representative, too. But he didn’t let any of them know [laughs] what he was doing. So that’s how Seminole County got here.
Horner
So we became our own county because we were a piece of Orange [County]. And then we tricked ‘em into letting us have our—into having our own county.
Wheeler
And in the effort to get that done, uh, there was a group of citizens in Oviedo, including a former c—Orange County commissioner, who did not think it was a good idea. And didn’t support it. And when [clears throat] the thing passed, the new commissioner set out to exact retribution from all the outlying areas that didn’t support it.
Horner
Uh, oh.
Wheeler
And…
Horner
[inaudible].
Wheeler
… that’s why we had the kind of roads and schools we had. Because they didn’t get any money.
Horner
So they—they strangled Oviedo…
Wheeler
Yep.
Horner
…in effect…
Wheeler
Yep.
Horner
… from all the county money…
Wheeler
Yep.
Horner
…for improvements.
Wheeler
Oviedo. Chuluota. Geneva.
Horner
They didn’t get any road money.
Wheeler
No.
Horner
No school money.
Wheeler
And that did not change until the Supreme Court got into the segregation issue. And took the funding authority away from the—from the county commission and the school board. And mandated that they had to make a level playing field. And that was in the late sixties.
Horner
Well, Oviedo was a pretty small town well into the seven—the…
Wheeler
Yep.
Horner
… seventies. I mean, 800 people. Maybe 1,000.
Wheeler
Oh.
Horner
Small town.
Wheeler
It was about 2,500.
Horner
By the time we get to late-seventies.
Wheeler
Right. It was one square mile on the map. Um.
Horner
We didn’t even have a police department. Or a fire department.
Wheeler
We had a volunteer fire department. And we had one policeman. And he was also the constable for the unincorporated areas. He was empowered to enforce the law.
Horner
So what we called today a sheriff. He would have been a deputy sheriff for this area.
Wheeler
Probably. Yes.
Horner
But now we don’t use the term co—constable.
Wheeler
No. They’ve outlawed that office.
Horner
Who was the constable? Who was this…
Wheeler
George Kelsey .
Horner
Ah. He’s pretty much of a, uh—a legend in Oviedo.
Wheeler
Yeah. He—he served for a long time. Uh, and he was also the city police.
Horner
And did he do a good job?
Wheeler
He knew what was going on.
Horner
He knew what was happening.
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
And everybody’s family. And everybody’s [inaudible]…
Wheeler
Yeah. He had eyes and ears everywhere.
Horner
[laughs]. Um, he was a character. Are there any other important people in Oviedo that ought to be mentioned? Any other eccentric characters?
Wheeler
[sniffs]. Well, there was a few of ‘em that were kind of humorous. But n—none to the extent that George was. Mr. T.L. Lingo had an insurance agency in the back of that, uh, building that they just tore down on Broadway Street. What used to be the drug store. And he would send his bird dog across the street to the post office to get his mail. And they’d tie it up and put it in the dog’s mouth. And he’d bring it back over there to him. And, uh, he’d send a note down to the grocery store in the middle of the block for a pound of steak. Or for hamburger or whatever. And they’d wrap it up and give it to the dog. The dog would bring it right on back there to him.
Horner
Didn’t eat the steak?
Wheeler
No. No.
Horner
Well, you’re a Lawton way back along. What about the Lawton family? You’re related to them. A couple of generations ago.
Wheeler
Yeah. Well, Professor Lawton—T.W. Lawton , for whom the school is named, uh, was the—probably the first person to get a college education in, uh, Oviedo. And he rode the Dinky [Line] back and forth every day to get to school at Rollins [College] [sniffs]. Now, I don’t know whether he bummed or if he bought a ticket but…
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
…that’s how he got there. He became, I think, the second superintendent of schools for the county. And he…
Horner
Yeah. The first elected one. The first one was appointed by the governor…
Wheeler
Right.
Horner
…when we finally became the…
Wheeler
Right.
Horner
…the county. But…
Wheeler
And, uh, he served until about 1953. So it was thirty-some years. When he got ready to retire, somebody figured out that if each child in the county would give a penny, they’d have enough to buy him a new car. And so they all put their pennies in and bought him a brand new Chevrolet sedan when he retired.
Horner
Appreciated gift.
Wheeler
I’m sure.
Horner
Where’d—where did the people in town go to church? ‘Cause I’ve always heard that the churches were very important in Oviedo.
Wheeler
If the churches were behind it, it would happen. Well, [clear throat] there’s two things that a—any little small town has a plethora of. And that’s churches and gas stations. They might not have a grocery store. And they might not have doctor. But they’d have churches and gas stations.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
There was the First Baptist of Oviedo, the First Methodist of Oviedo [sniffs]. And then there was, um [clears throat], Church of God, um…
Horner
And, of course, the black churches [inaudible].
Wheeler
I’m trying to think of the name of the one—oh. Mission Road Baptist Church. Antioch. Fountain Head. Um, there were two more down in Lawtonville, but I can’t think of the names of either one of ‘em. One of ‘em’s still operating. But church was a—a big, uh, factor in what went on in town.
Horner
D—did the Methodists and Baptists cooperate? I mean, they lived—they were…
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
…fairly close together.
Wheeler
Yeah. The early days, they had service every other Sunday. And whatever Sunday it was—that the Methodist Church, everybody went there. Then the next week, they’d go to the Baptist Church.
Horner
[laughs]. [clears throat]. Well, to get on a bit of a lighter side, uh, when it comes around Halloween, we always hear talk about the spooky Oviedo lights.
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
We’re famous for having the spooky Oviedo lights. What were they? Or are they, if they still exist?
Wheeler
There are [clears throat]—they still exist. But the reality of ‘em has been blown way out of proportion. Back then, if you went down there to the bridge on a bright moonlit night, you could see a sparkle in the water. And it was phosphorous. And that became i—i—it was just a curiosity to go and see. And, of course, that bridge is way out beyond anywhere. And the kids’d like to go there.
Um, but then it got to be the Oviedo lights. And if we went to Winter Park or Sanford, we’d hear the kids talking about the Oviedo lights. And, oh, there was this ball of fire coming down the road. And, um, there was somebody hung in the water tower. Um…
Horner
Was that true? Somebody hung in the water tower?
Wheeler
No.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
None of that was…
Horner
None of…
Wheeler
… true.
Horner
…that.
Wheeler
None of that was true. But you couldn’t convince anybody that i—I’d say there was more chemical enhancement…
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
… that went on than anything else.
Horner
[laughs]. Oo. Okay. S—Since you are so knowledgeable—mm—uh, lived in Oviedo and your family lived there, is there anything else that’s unique or special about Oviedo that you remember?
Wheeler
[sniffs] Well, it’s kind of lost this now, since we’re not a bedroom community any more, but there was a community that engulfed everybody. And there were any number of things that were citizen-initiated that we would’ve never had otherwise. The swimming pool for one. The Memorial Building for another. The doctor’s clinic for another. The Woman’s Club started the first garbage collection. The Woman’s Club funded the first, um—I don’t know what you’d call it now. We called it a rescue wagon. You know, a van with oxygen and sh—
Horner
Ah.
Wheeler
First responder kind of thing.
Horner
‘Cause there was[sic] no EMTs…
Wheeler
No.
Horner
…so…
Wheeler
The firemen manned it. Um, you were asking me a while ago about how did you reported[sic] a fire. Well, there was a big whistle up on pole by the firehouse. And you went there and pushed the button. And you could hear it all over town [sniffs]. And, uh, people would come. The men would come and they’d tell ‘em where the fire was. And—and they’d go to it. It usually amounted to saving the house next to the house that was on fire.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
Because a lot of those houses were tarpaper and wood and all. And they just went up like a box of matches.
Horner
Mm. So do you just come up—the old fashioned thing. Do you come up and pump the pump? And spray the water on the house next door?
Wheeler
Well, not quite that primitive.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
Um, in 1947, the City bought a Ford truck. It was the first one they could get after the war. And the young returning veterans built a tank—a water tank on it. And put a pump on it. And that was the first firetruck.
And then, in 1957, the City bought another, uh, commercial-grade firetruck. So we had two. But it wasn’t uncommon at all for a fire whistle to blow and somebody to rush down there who didn’t know where the fire was. And didn’t know how to operate the pump. And they’d get in the firetruck and go dashing off somewhere. Somebody’d have to catch ‘em and bring ‘em back [laughs].
Horner
[laughs]. Eh, they c—they couldn’t pick up the microphone and say…
Wheeler
No.
Horner
…“Dispatch. Where you going?”
Wheeler
No. There wasn’t any of that. Now, George Kelsey did have a radio connected to the sheriff’s department. But that was it.
Horner
[laughs]. Well, I was trying to think if there was anything else I didn’t—it is interesting that Oviedo was so close-knit that they did sw—the swimming pool, the Memorial Building in f—in memoriam to the Second y—World War people. And, uh, the canning m—m—
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
…kitchen.
Wheeler
That was a…
Horner
The community canning kitchen.
Wheeler
…a thing for the war effort. But that Memorial Building and the clinic—both were built with as much donated labor and materials as there was p—probably more than what was purchased [sniffs]. Dudas gave the lumber. Um, Bob Ash was a brick mason. He laid all the block. Joe Leinhart had lumber that he had cut in Black Hammock years ago. He furnished all the w—trim and the woodwork for the inside of the building. He probably put it up, knowing him.
Um, it was a—it was a concerted effort because Dr. Martin had retired. And he had to move to Orlando in order to retire because people wouldn’t quit coming.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
His office was right beside his house up there where the Baptist church is now. And people just wouldn’t take no for an answer. And so finally, he moved. And that was another thing my grandfather was a[sic] instigator in. He called together the leading businessmen in town. And they said, “The only way we’re ever gonna get a doctor is to build a place for him to practice.” And so, the major—mostly the major farmers in the area went together and raised some money. And then set the volunteers to work.
Horner
And they built the clinic.
Wheeler
And they built the clinic.
Horner
You know? ‘Cause the—the farmers at that time would have been the leading lights…
Wheeler
Yeah.
Horner
…of the community.
Wheeler
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Horner
‘Cause they were the ones bringing in the income.
Wheeler
Mhmm.
Horner
How did the African-American community and the white community get along with each other?
Wheeler
[sniffs] I don’t ever remember any—any discord of any kind except for that one incident in high school. And that was quickly put to rest. And we all just got along.
Horner
I heard a story once from a—a man who said that, uh, Benjamin Wheeler bought him a car. ‘Cause he was—he didn’t have the money. And he needed it because he was the crew chief. And he needed to get the guys to work. Do you remember that story?
Wheeler
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was Buster Garrison. And he—he was an entrepreneur. He hauled his crew to the grove. And then he’d put sides on his truck and load it with oranges. And haul ‘em to the juice plant. And, of course, old trucks were always…
Horner
Breaking.
Wheeler
… something wrong with ‘em. And he finally went to my dad and said, “Mr. Frank. I mean I need me a new truck. And I ain’t got no money. And I don’t want you to tell me no [laughs].”
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
And what did—what did Frank Wheeler say?
Horner
He got him a truck.
Wheeler
[laughs].
Horner
I don’t know what their arrangements were. I’m sure he paid some on it. But Buster was a, um, hugely industrious person. To work night and day. Do anything you want him to do. Gladly. And my dad just saw the worth of it. He sent him over to Holler Chevrolet. And I’m sure he called Mr. Holler and said, “Get this man a truck.” That’s the way things worked back then.
Um, years later—years later, I had a mirror get knocked off of my Chevrolet truck. One of the outside mirrors. And I went to the place to get it seen about. And I was in my work clothes. And I had my little dog with me. And the only thing I had for a leash was a piece of hay bailing twine about so long. So I made a leash out of that. And me and her were walking around outside. And the—the service writer said, “Well, I don’t know if we’ve got the part. And I don’t know if we’ve got time to put it on.” And all this, that and the other. I said, "I’ll wait.” ‘Cause this was in Winter Park, now. And there was—I’ll never forget this. There was a salesman. He had rose-colored glasses and a pink ultra-suede coat on.
Wheeler
[laughs].
Horner
And he came out there to smoke a cigarette and took one look at me and my dog and wheeled around and went back inside [laughs].
Wheeler
[laughs].
Horner
And so help me, it wasn’t a minute or two, Mr. Holler came out. And he walked over there to me. And we shook hands and started talking. You know, just passing the time. And all of a sudden, that service writer came out there and said, “Mr. Wheeler, we gon’ get you taken care of [laughs].”
Wheeler
[laughs].
Horner
You looked like you didn’t have two nickels to rub together.
Wheeler
That’s…
Horner
He didn’t…
Wheeler
That’s…
Horner
He didn’t know who he was dealing with.
Wheeler
That’s what they thought.
Horner
[laughs]. And you’re one…
Wheeler
I…
Horner
… one of the most important families in town [laughs].
Wheeler
Can’t judge a book by its cover.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
I guess the one story I would tell again, because it’s so funny to me.
Horner
[clears throat].
Wheeler
Our county commissioner in this district was B.C. Dodd . He lived out there in Goldenrod. And at that time, the commissioner got to say where the road money was spent in his district. Well, I want so and so fixed. Or it’s—you know, whatever. So Mr. Dodd stood up and he said, “I wanna pave that road from the city limits of Oviedo to the county line.” Which is now Alafaya Trail. It was just dirt before that. And the commissioner from Sanford jumped up and says, “I don’t know why you wanna do that.” Said, “Ain’t nobody ever gonna use it.” [laughs].
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
And he says, “You hush, Pope. I didn’t say anything about what you did in your district. And this is what I wanna do.” And how prophetic that decision turned out to be. Because where Mitchell Hammock Road crosses Alafaya was the city limits. And from there on out this way was dirt. Clay.
Horner
And he was the only one that was farsighted enough to see you’re gonna need her. Hm.
Wheeler
That was—that was in the early sixties. We had heard about what was gonna be the new space university, but nothing had actually happened.
Horner
Ah. Yeah. ‘Cause they hadn’t chosen the site yet.
Wheeler
Right.
Horner
Boy. He was taking a gamble.
Wheeler
Yeah. He was.
Horner
Maybe that’s why Dodd Road is named after him.
Wheeler
Well, he was a—he was a prominent figure. And he was huge. He was, uh, like 7 foot something tall. And he wore—they’ve got one of his shoes in the Goldenrod Museum. And it’s—I’m not kidding. It’s like that.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
He was a giant. And, of course, that went along with his demeanor.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
At that time, they were trying to decide where to put FTU . And one of the sites they looked at is where Seminole Community College is. And another site they looked at was there at—across from Lockwood Road and [County Road] 419. And Mr. C.S. Lee offered to give ‘em the land if they’d put it there.
Horner
[laughs].
Wheeler
But Mr. Billy Dial in Orlando, and a few more like that, th—they wasn’t gonna have that. So FTU got put where it is. And as a conciliation prize, we got the Iron Bridge sewer plant and Seminole [State] College. And where they are is no accident.
Horner
Uh huh.
Wheeler
There is still some animosity there.
Horner
So we’re here at UCF. And it’s out of the farsightedness of Mr. Dodd. And…
Wheeler
Well, he…
Horner
…we got a way to get here.
Wheeler
…he played a role in it [sniffs].
Horner
Well, is there anything else that you would like to add about Oviedo? Something that you really appreciate about living in that town. Growing up in that town.
Wheeler
The people. I had so many good friends. And—and a lot of people worked for my dad. And, of course, I got to know them. And, uh, I miss ‘em tremendously. And I miss that sense of community.
Horner
The whole downtown is gone now.
Wheeler
The whole downtown is gone. But what’s really gone is that fellowship. If you needed something that somebody in the community was—that was their forte, you just went to ‘em and said, “You know, I need a well put down.” “I need a survey made.” “I need, you know, whatever it was.” And, uh, they all worked together [sniffs].
I wrote a column for The [Seminole] Voice one time about they all worked together. And I can’t find it anymore. But I named a couple of dozen things that happened that way in Oviedo.
Horner
Somebody needed their fellow man.
Wheeler
Well, we need a clinic. We need a city hall. We need a swimming pool. We need garbage service. There was just a—a lot of things that—and they would have never happened any other way. Because we weren’t going to get any support from the county. And the city didn’t have any money.
Horner
Hm. Yeah. Well, thank you, Ben, for talking to us. And letting us…
Wheeler
My…
Horner
…know…
Wheeler
…pleasure.
Horner
…about Oviedo. And you’re—you’re a fount of knowledge.
Wheeler
I’ll probably go home and say, “Dang. Why didn’t I tell ‘em that?”
Horner
[laughs]. I’m sure you will.
Alafaya Trail
Andrew George Alexander Kelsey
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
Basil Corbett “B.C.” Dodd
bedroom community
Benjamin "Ben" Franklin Wheeler III
Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Wheeler, Jr.
Benjamin Franklin Wheeler
Black Hammock
Buster Garrison
Charles Simeon Lee
citrus industry
Clara Isabelle Lawton
Desta Lee Horner
Dinky Line
Five Points Operations Complex
Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad
Florida Technological University
Forrest Lake
Henry Shelton Sanford
Holler Chevrolet
Iron Bridge Water Pollution Control Facility
Jacob Summerlin
John Thomas Wheeler
King Brothers
Memorial Building
Narcissa Melissa
Nelson and Company Packing Plant
Nelson Brothers Packing House
orlando
Oviedo
Oviedo Depot
Oviedo Drug and Meat World
Oviedo Lights
packing houses
pine timber
Sanford
Seaboard Air Line Railroad
Seminole County
Steen Nelson
T.L. Lingo
Theodore “Judge” Aulin, Sr.
Thomas Willingham Lawton
turpentine
University of Central Florida
Wheeler-Evans House
William Henry “Billy” Dial
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/10f90dbd143c3fd155b1f26de5d9bfce.pdf
0a0092d9e0a2fc001530ae5cb69bf606
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Central Florida Railroad Depots Collection
Alternative Title
Central Florida Railroad Depots Collection
Subject
Railroad depots
Railroad stations--Florida
Railroads--Florida
Apopka (Fla.)
Orlando (Fla.)
Ocala (Fla.)
Port Orange (Fla.)
Lake Wales (Fla.)
Avon Park (Fla.)
Mount Dora (Fla.)
Punta Gorda (Fla.)
Sanford (Fla.)
Kissimmee (Fla.)
Oviedo (Fla.)
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Description
Collection of digital images, documents, and other records depicting the various railroad depots and railroad stations in Central Florida. Series descriptions are based on special topics, the majority of which students focused their metadata entries around.
Contributor
Bronson, Kelly
Campbell, Tyler
Clemente, Chris
Connolly, Lehman
Covington, Adrian
Gray, Mark
Lester, Connie L.
Mercado, Carlos R.
Moore, Samantha
Santos, Marina
Simons, Nicholas
Smalls, Eric
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/77" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>.
Coverage
Amtrak Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Station, Orlando, Florida
Apopka Seaboard Air Line Railway Depot, Apopka, Florida
Avon Park Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida
Avon Park Seaboard Air Line Depot, Avon Park, Florida
Avon Park Atlantic Coast Line Train Station, Avon Park, Florida
Church Street Station, Orlando, Florida
Fort Pierce Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Depot, Fort Pierce, Florida
Fort Pierce Florida East Coast Railway Company Depot, Fort Pierce, Florida
Kissimmee Railroad Station, Kissimmee, Florida
Lake Wales Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Depot, Lake Wales, Florida
Lake Wales Depot Museum, Lake Wales, Florida
Mount Dora Train Station, Mount Dora, Florida
Ocala Union Station, Ocala, Florida
Orlando Railroad Depot, Orlando, Florida
Oviedo Train Depot, Oviedo, Florida
Port Orange Train Station, Port Orange, Florida
Punta Gorda Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Depot, Punta Gorda, Florida
Sanford Atlantic Coast Line Depot, Sanford, Florida
Sanford South Florida Railroad, Sanford, Florida
St. Lucie County Regional History Center, Fort Pierce, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=525" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s American Economic History Undergraduate Class, Spring 2014
External Reference
Mulligan, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/225874809" target="_blank"><em>Railroad Depots of Central Florida</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2008.
Turner, Gregg M. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/184906141" target="_blank"><em>A Journey into Florida Railroad History</em></a>. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.
Murdock, R. Ken. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38291666" target="_blank"><em>Outline History of Central Florida Railroads</em></a>. Winter Garden, Fla: Central Florida Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, 1997.
"<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 25: The Railways of Central Florida</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
Cravero, Geoffrey
Interviewee
McFarland, Warren
Bit Rate/Frequency
574kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oral History of Warren McFarland
Alternative Title
Oral History, McFarland
Subject
Orlando (Fla.)
Avon Park (Fla.)
Telegraph
Railroads--Florida
Description
An oral history interview of Warren McFarland, a telegrapher, train dispatcher, railroad station agent, grocery clerk, Railroad Safety and Service Agent, Assistant Regional Director and Regional Manager for the Interstate Commerce Commission, and Director of the Office of Compliance and Consumer Assistance. The interview was conducted by Geoffrey Cravero at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida, on January 28, 2016. Some of the interview topics covered include McFarland’s early years and formative experiences, his family life, growing up as the son of a railroad station agent and telegrapher in a railroad depot, World War II, railroad work and telegraphy in his time versus his father’s time, his first job as a grocery clerk, the “extra board” and railroad seniority, working for the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, the Morse Telegraph Club, female telegraphers, American Morse Code versus International Morse Code, acquiring a piece of the first transcontinental telegraph line, train dispatching, overcoming communication limits, an explanation of telegrapher’s paralysis, and Guglielmo Marconi’s contributions to wireless telegraphy.
Table Of Contents
0:00:00 Introduction<br />0:01:59 Family life<br />0:04:45 Growing up in a railroad depot and World War II<br />0:07:34 Railroad work and telegraphy in father’s time<br />0:09:38 First job as a grocery clerk, the “extra board” and railroad seniority<br />0:11:45 Interstate Commerce Commission<br />0:17:22 Morse Telegraph Club<br />0:26:12 First transcontinental telegraph line<br />0:23:17 Train dispatching and overcoming communication limits<br />0:28:39 Telegraphy demonstration<br />0:35:23 Guglielmo Marconi and wireless telegraphy
Abstract
Oral history interview of Warren McFarland Interview conducted by Geoffrey Cravero at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida.
Type
Moving Image
Source
McFarland, Warren. Interviewed by Geoffrey Cravero. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida.
Requires
<a href="http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/" target="_blank"> Adobe Flash Player</a>
<a href="http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp" target="_blank"> Java</a>
<a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/97" target="_blank">Central Florida Railroad Depots Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Has Format
Digital transcript of original 35-minute and 41-second oral history: McFarland, Warren. Interviewed by Geoffrey Cravero. Audio/video record available. <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>, Orlando, Florida.
Coverage
Ohio
Avon Park Atlantic Coast Line Train Station, Avon Park, Florida
Ocala Union Station, Ocala, Florida
Chicago, Illinois
Atlanta, Georgia
San Francisco, California
Frances Perkins Building, Washington, D.C.
Golden Spike National Historic Site, Brigham City, Utah
Creator
McFarland, Warren
Cravero, Geoffrey
Publisher
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Date Created
2016-01-28
Date Copyrighted
2016-01-28
Format
video/mp4
application/pdf
Extent
197 MB
Medium
35-minute and 41-second audio/video recording
14-page digital transcript
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Economics Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by Warren McFarland and Geoffrey Cravero and published by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>.
Rights Holder
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
Accrual Method
Item Creation
Curator
Cravero, Geoffrey
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a>
External Reference
Mulligan, Michael. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/225874809" target="_blank"><em>Railroad Depots of Central Florida</em></a>. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2008.
Turner, Gregg M. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/184906141" target="_blank"><em>A Journey into Florida Railroad History</em></a>. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.
Murdock, R. Ken. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38291666" target="_blank"><em>Outline History of Central Florida Railroads</em></a>. Winter Garden, Fla: Central Florida Chapter, National Railway Historical Society, 1997.
"<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 25: The Railways of Central Florida</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/items/show/2477.
Coe, Lewis. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/25509648" target="_blank"><em>The Telegraph: A History of Morse's Invention and Its Predecessors in the United States</em></a>. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1993.
Stone, Richard D. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/23649628" target="_blank"><em>The Interstate Commerce Commission and the Railroad Industry: A History of Regulatory Policy. New York: Praeger, 1991</em></a>.
Click to View (Movie, Podcast, or Website)
<a href="https://youtu.be/bzVlSEHnEaI" target="_blank">Oral History of Warren McFarland</a>
Transcript
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Today is Thursday, January 28<sup>th</sup>, 2016. My name’s Geoffrey Cravero and I’m speaking with Warren McFarland at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Thanks for speaking with us today, Mr. McFarland. Let’s, uh, begin with some of your biography. Could you, uh, tell us a little bit about where you’re originally from and your upbringing?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, I was—I was born in Ohio, but we moved to Orlando when I was a year and a half old, so I count myself as a Floridian, and my father worked for the railroad here in Or—Orlando, and eventually went to Avon Park and was Railroad Agent there for many years, and that’s where I grew up, went to high school and—and, uh, where I went—learned from him—I learned the telegraph, I learned railroad work, and eventually went to work for the railroad after I graduated from high school in 1941. Um, had—had planned to go to college, but 1941 was not a good year to college, uh [<em>coughs</em>] and, uh, I wound up working on another railroad division, rather than the one that went through Avon Park, w—working out of Ocala, and I worked there, uh, for like 25 years, and then I was offered a position with the Interstate Commerce Commission, and I went, um—went with them, and uh, we—we lived in different places: uh, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C, and I eventually retired as Director of the Office of Compliance for the Interstate Commerce Commission out of Washington, and I moved—we moved back to Florida after I retired, and been living here ever since.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>That’s neat. Um, so—what, uh—could you tell us a little bit more about your, uh, your parents? And did you have any siblings, or...</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Yes. [<em>clears throat</em>] Uh, well, I had, uh, two brothers and three sisters. Uh, the three—the three sisters and one of the brothers were half—half-brothers and sisters, but I didn’t know the difference. Um, they were—they were all older than I, and, uh, so—uh, they were my brothers and sisters, and still are. Al—although they’re not living anymore. I’m the only one of the six that’s still alive, but, uh, my parents were both from Southeastern Ohio, and my father worked for the railroad there, uh, for like 18 years, I think it was, and then he decided to come to Florida and get rich in the Florida Boom in the 1920s. Uh, that didn’t work, so he went back to the railroad and worked for the railroad until he retired [<em>clears throat</em>], and, um, my mother, uh, she was just a farm girl, but she—she worked for a doctor as a receptionist, and she later worked, um, at—in the express office with my father, and then, she—when he retired, she retired, and so, uh, they lived—live—they lived in Avon Park until—until she could no longer take care of herself, and my—my brothers and sisters, um, they—they all—lived all over the place. One in—one in Virginia, one in, uh, Ohio, and—and Chi—and Chicago, and one in Dallas, and my—my brother lived in Avon Park his entire life. He said, “There’s no reason for—for anybody to live anywhere but Avon Park.”</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>].</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /> </strong>[<em>laughs</em>] So that’s where he stayed.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Were any of them, uh—did they follow in the family business of the railroad?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>No, none of them. I’m the only one out of—out of, uh—out of six, I’m the only one that went into the railroad business, um, and my—my youngest sister’s husband did go into the railroad business, and his son also went into the railroad business, and I had an uncle that was a railroad man. So it—railroading has—has always been pretty much a—a family, uh, affair in many—in many families. You know, one—one person gets started and then—then others go in, but—but none of my brothers and sisters, uh, were interested.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Well, you mentioned, uh—that you—your father, uh, was a station agent and telegrapher in Avon Park. Um, could you tell us a little bit about growing up in the depot? What sort of, uh—what sort of skills and knowledge did you kind of acquire as a young man?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, [<em>clears throat</em>] uh, I—I was always—I was not a, uh— crazy about trains, but I was interested in trains and—and—and the railroading, and I can remember when I could barely, uh, reach—stand up and—and reach the tabletop like this, and my dad had me doing things that I could do in the—like stamping—taking the rubber stamp and stamping it on a piece of paper on—on what’s called a waybill, which is a—a ship—a shipment, uh, document that you fill out when you have a shipment to make, and, uh, I would st—stamp the—the Avon Park’s stamp on there that showed this, that, where it started from, but, that had to have been about about—5-6 years old when I did that, and I—off and on, all—all during my school years, I just hung around there, and I—I didn’t—I wasn’t consciously preparing for a career in railroading. A matter of fact: my older brothers and sisters all went to college and—and—and it was planned for me to go also, but, as I said earlier, I graduated in 1941, and—and they were already drafting people out of—out of my class, and, um, so I—I knew it was a matter of time. So I didn’t think there was much point in going to college at that time.</p>
<p>So I didn’t go until much later, but, uh, it—it—when—when I was in my senior year in high school, uh, that’s when you could see what was happening: the world was in turmoil, and, um—and, as I said, members of my class had—had been called up, and—so I began to learn telegraphy, and my father taught me and I practiced, and then after I graduated from—from, uh, school, he, um, told the—the railroad that I was, uh, sufficiently knowledgeable to go to work, and, uh—I—I didn’t—As I said, I didn’t—wasn’t consciously, um, aware that I was absorbing everything that I did absorb during those years, uh, hanging around the depot, but I learned an awful lot that I didn’t know I’d learned, until I went out on my own and was working.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>What, uh—did you notice, uh, any, uh, major differences between the—the time of your father and yours when it c—comes to the, you know—the telegraphing and the—the depots?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Oh, yeah. Well…</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>When—when my father started, telegraphing was just about—I mean, that was like the major—major, uh, means of internal communication on the rail—on nearly every railroad, and—and when I started, it still was, but it—it began to fade away the—the longer I stayed, and I—and I—I stayed until 1965, and by that time, uh, they still required, uh, uh, people to know how to telegraph to go to work, but—but—at least—as—as—as, uh, operators and agents, but they did not, uh—did not use—use it, because they—everybody had telephones and—and things of that nature. So it was not as—as use—used as much then, and—and probably—well, I left the rail—railroad for the ICC<a title="">[1]</a> in 1965, and by the early 70s, there was[sic] hardly any railroads anywhere using t—the telegraph. It was all teletype and—and telephones and things of that nature. So that—it was[sic] tremendous difference there, and now, of course, it’s gone even beyond that. It’s all computerized—email and everything else like that. Even train dispatching, which I did for—for 18 years, um—that’s become computer-assisted train dispatching and—and the computer does it. When—when—when I was working, it was—it was all in your head. You had to do it all in your head, but, now the computer—they have what they call “computer-assisted dispatching.”</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>So was, uh—I guess the depot was your very first job you had, or…</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, actually, no [<em>laughs</em>]. The very first paying job I—I worked as a clerk in the A&P<a title="">[2]</a> grocery store on Saturdays, uh, which—that—in—in a small town like Avon Park, that was about the only job that—kind of job that was available to a—to a high school kid, and there were three of four, uh, grocery stores in town, and the A&P, which was a chain, the re—others were all independent, but everybody—all the kids that I knew worked at one—one of the grocery stores. That’s where you got your first job.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Um, so I understand you ended up in Ocala, right? But, uh—but you kind of went from—where you were needed, um…</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Yes, you—when—when you begin railroading as—as a telegraph operator, you—you are put on what they call “the extra board.” Uh, um, you—you—your first day, you establish the date of your seniority, and that means that anybody that’s hired after you—you—you have rights over them on—on—if you want to claim a job or something like that, and—and the same thing hold—anybody that[sic] hired ahead of you can claim a job that’s—whether you want—whether you want it or not, and so, you—as—on the extra board, you just went where you were needed. Uh, somebody needed to be off sick, uh—there were no vacation—no paid vacation at the time, so that—uh, there was not much of that. Although some—some people did take vacations, and you went and worked for them, or they put on extra jobs because of seasonal problems—uh, season—seasonable increases in—in business, they’d put on an extra job somewhere to help the dispatchers handle trains, and so, you worked all over. I worked, uh, I don’t know how many different places. I could probably count it up. Not worth it.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>[<em>laughs</em>] Um, let’s see. Before the, uh, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad merged with the Seaboard Air Line [Railroad], um, and absorbed the Tavares & Gulf Railroad in 1969, you’d already moved to California at that point. Could you tell us a little bit about what you did out there with the Interstate Commerce Commission?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, I—I—I—my first job with the ICC was in Chicago as—as a Railroad Safety and Service Agent, and, uh, in—in that capacity, I—I made what we call “agency checks” and “yard checks,” and we—we had two things: we were looking for compliance with the—with the tariffs, which had the force of law, and we were looking for, um, equipment that was not being used efficiently, and so, the—as the—and—and the other thing that—that in—in ’65, we also were charged with safety, uh, inspections of equipment and things of that nature.</p>
<p>However, in—in ’67 —1967, all of that was transferred into the newly-formed [U.S.] Department of Transportation, and so we no longer had any kind of safety obligation, but we still retained the car service, which was car—car efficiency, and—and the tariff and—and regulation, and so, I would go from—to various agencies along, um—in my territory. I had an—had an assigned territory, and I was supposed to visit these agencies on a periodic basis and ver—verify that they were complying with all of the rules and regulations, and that they were not delaying any equipment—and that was being used, and from there I—I was transferred to Atlanta doing the same thing, but, uh—and I stayed there for, uh, about five years, and then I was, uh, promoted and went back to Chicago as Assistant Regional Director there, and in—in that capacity, I was assisting the Re—Regional Director and overseeing all of the people that were doing the kind of work I was just desc—describing, and then, um, in ’73, I was, uh, promoted again and went to, um, San Francisco as, um, Regional Manager, and I had the, uh, responsibility for the 13 western states, plus Alaska and Hawaii. Uh, now, railroads and—and buses and trucks don’t run to Hawaii from the mainland, but—but—so we didn’t do much there, but what—I still had the responsibility for Hawaii and Alaska, and I was overseeing not only the—the people who were doing the work that I was talking about earlier, but I was also overseeing the—the lawyers, who—who, uh, handled the cases that were made and the—and the accountants that were—were auditing the—the books of the various, uh, carriers—motor and rail and barge lines and pipelines, and part of the—part of—and—and when I was in, um, San Francisco, the, um, uh, [Trans-]Alaska Pipeline [System] was being built and we had to oversee that, and the law required, at that time, that—and people usually don’t know this because a pipeline is a common carrier, and so, in order to know what they could charge, you had to know what their costs were to build and maintain the—the pipeline, and to do that, we had to have auditors go in and verify, and about ha—halfway through construction, everybody woke up that this was a nine billion dollar, uh, enterprise, and if we waited ‘til after the fact to—to, uh, audit it, we’d nev—they’d never know what they—what they could po—possibly charge. So we sent a team of auditors up there, and they stayed there for about three years determining the actual cost so that the pipeline could go into—into operation when it was finished, but then, after—I was—I was in San Francisco until 1981, and, um, the—the new chairman that had been appointed by President [Ronald] Reagan, uh, was—knew me, and he brought me into Washington[, D.C.] as Director of the Office of Compliance and Consumer Assistance, and I stayed there until I retired in ’85, but in—in Washington, I had oversight over the—the entire country for all of the things that I’ve been talking about that we did. Plus, uh, a lot of local stuff and—going up to Congress and taking care of that sort of thing.<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>I read, uh, [<em>clears throat</em>] that the Morse Telegraph Club[, Inc.] used to meet at the [Central Florida] Railroad Museum on [Samuel] Morse’s birthday.<a title="">[3]</a> Could you tell me a little about, uh, the club and how that all came about?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, it’s—it—it started, actually, back in the 1930s. Uh, some people that were telegraphers decided that they—that it would be a good idea to make—to have a club, and it was more or less a fraternal organization, at the time. I say “fraternal,” although there are a lot of women telegraphers. Uh, throughout the—the whole history of telegraphy, there—there have been a lot of women telegraphers, and probably, on the railroad, was—may have well have been the first industry that paid women the same wage as men for doing the same job, which was not true in—in—not true even today in many—many cases, but, uh, anyhow, these people got together and—and, as I said, it was just sort of a—I won’t say a drinking club, because it wasn’t that, but it was—it was a social club more than anything else, and then it—it sort of faded away a little bit, uh, and just hanging on by its teeth, you might say, and—and then, um, uh—I’m not sure of the exact dates, but sometime after World War II, when—when telegraphy began to fade away, as I had mentioned earlier on [inaudible] on the railroad, Western Union [Company] had al—already almost gone completely to—to teletype, uh, by that time, and, um, so the—the organization transformed itself into, uh, an historical preservation organization, and the goal of—of the, um—of the organization today is to preserve the knowledge and history and the technology that existed, uh, when the telegraph was in use, and, um, we organize in chapters.</p>
<p>Uh, we used to have a chapter in every state and some states had—had, uh, two chapters, but, uh, time has taken its toll and—and, um, now we’re down, uh—for example, the Florida chapter, of which I’m a member, um, encompasses Georgia and—and South Carolina and Tennessee, and—and Alabama. Uh, and so, the membership—the membership hasn’t really declined that much, but the membership of people who actually worked as telegraphers has obviously gone down—way down. Somebody made an estimate, and I don’t know the truth of it or not, but said there were only about 150 of us left in the organization that actually earned a living as—as telegraphers. Um, that may be true, it may not be true. I don’t know, but at the present time, we have probably around 3,000 members and we have around 30 chapters in the United States and Canada, and we—we do demonstrations at—at just about any place that will invite us to do a demonstration, but mostly to local historical societies that have an annual affair and they want something, uh, of, um—that—that has some historical significance, and so they’ll ask us to come and do—do a demonstration [<em>clears throat</em>], and many of these members that we have now have taught themselves to telegraph.</p>
<p>They’ve never worked as telegraphers, but they’ve taught themselves to telegraph, and some of the—some of the members are ham radio<a title="">[4]</a> operators, which uses a—a different code, but it’s still Morse Code. It’s an international code, known as International [Morse] Code, as opposed to American Morse [Code], which was the kind that was used on railroads and Western Union and stock markets and, uh, all of that sort of thing.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>] I understand that it— somehow you, uh—you acquired a piece of the very first telegraph line that stretched all the way out to California.</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>And how’d that—how’d that—how’d you end up acquiring that?</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>I didn’t think…</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>[<em>clears throat</em>].</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>To bring that today, uh, but we—we have a website that’s—the Florida chapter has a website, and, uh, an outfit in Utah was setting up, um, an exhibit in a museum,<a title="">[5]</a> uh, where at a—at a—at a former Army camp. Uh, when I say former, I’m talking about [American] Civil War-era Army camp [<em>laughs</em>] that was one of the first stations on the Transcontinental Tre—Telegraph Line, and so they wanted some historical reference to the telegraph in their museum there, and, uh, they found our website on the internet and contacted us, and we were able to get them some telegraph instruments and assist them, and some months later, they, uh, contacted us again and said they had come into possession of a link of the original Transcontinental Telegraph Wire—came from Northeastern, uh, Nevada—just across the Utah line in Northeastern Nevada, and a man had found it and had donated, uh, a length of it—I don’t know how much—but had donated a length of it to this museum, and they wanted to know if we would like to have a piece of it, and so they sent us about two and a half feet: about 30 inches of it—a piece about that long, and it’s—it’s—it was a nine gauge, which is heavy, heavy wire. I mean, it’s—it’s almost a quarter, uh—not—not a quarter. Maybe, uh—it’s over an eighth of an inch thick—uh, the—the wire is, and it’s almost impossible to bend it with your bare hands.</p>
<p>It’s—it’s that thick, and it’d been laying out in the, uh—in the open in the desert out there near—near the old, uh, Pony Express route and the, um, stagecoach route that went west through there [<em>coughs</em>], and, um, they, uh—they kept, um—they kept it there, um, um—it—laid out there in the desert, and—and doesn’t rust like it would in—here in Florida, you know? It would all be rusted away [<em>laughs</em>] if that had happened here, and so we had that piece of—of the wire, and we—we debated as a—as an organization what to do with it. It wasn’t big enough to use anywhere really. So we wound up—and we cut it into pieces about, um, six inches long and mounted it on plaques, uh, and with a little bit of a history of it on the back of the plaque, and we use that in our demonstrations. Uh, we take it—take it around where—and we—we have these plaques distributed among the membership, so that there’s al—[always] one available somewhere, but it’s very interesting and—and—the interesting—one of the things about it, that the—it was shipped to me—mailed to me in a padded envelope and it was rolled—folded up, and I tried to straighten it out with my hands when I took it out of the envelope. I could not do it. We had to finally put it in a vice and—and hold down one end of it, and finally got it straightened out, and it was so hard that you couldn’t cut it with wire cutters or anything like that. You had to use a saw to cut it, uh [<em>clears </em>throat] but that was what—the wire that was used in the, uh, original Transcontinental Telegraph Line in 8—finished in 1861 [<em>coughs</em>].<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Wow, incredible. Well, let’s see. Before we, uh—give us a little demonstration, do you have anything else that you’d like to add? Any final thoughts or…</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, I—I don’t know anything off the top of my head. Uh, uh, railroading was an interesting occupation, and I’m sure it’s still is, although I’ve been away from it now for many years. I’ve been retired for 30 years now, so, uh—and I—I’d left the railroad for 20 years before that, so [<em>laughs</em>] it’s been awhile since I’ve been railroading, but, I—I enjoyed the—the—working there, and as I said, I worked as a train dispatcher, which was, um, very complex and complicated job to keep the trains moving.</p>
<p>Uh, when I started, an old time dispatcher said, “Oh, there’s nothing to it.” Said, “You just—you just meet ‘em—don’t meet ‘em too close together or too far apart.” [<em>laughs</em>] Well, its’—that’s an oversimplification, but it—it’s what you—that’s exactly what you were trying to do was—is to move the trains over the—over the, uh, territory wi—in—in the most efficient manner possible, and that, you know—and single track and—and—and, uh, with limited, uh, communication. You had no communication—when I started, you had no communication with—with the people on the train other than handing them up, uh—as they pass an open telegraph office you—you could hand them up orders or, uh, messages of what you want to do, or they could throw off something as they went by, but, um, that was an interesting, uh, occupation and—and very demanding, very challenging. Um, somewhat comparable to an aircraft, uh, uh, air—air controller, except that we couldn’t tell the tr—trains to pull up and go around or—or, uh, fly higher and—and not hit—hit the train ahead of them. They were—they were, uh, consigned to the track. They had to stay on the track, so made—made it a little bit more complicated.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Well, I guess, if you would, let’s, uh, give us a little demonstration here. Let me see if I…</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, I’m sorry…</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Can...</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>That this is not working. I don’t know what it is, but, this—this is the sound [<em>tapping</em>]—this is the sound of—this instrument in—in this is called a sounder, [<em>tapping</em>] and this, uh, box-like object is called a resonator, and the purpose of it is to focus the sound so it can be, uh, heard more clearly, and the can—the Prince Albert tobacco can, we—we now—we call it the “first solid-state amplifier,” because it makes a difference [<em>tapping</em>]. If you can hear the different—[<em>tapping</em>] with and without the can [<em>tapping</em>], and somebody back in the—in the early days of this discovered that you could do that—that, because a railroad agent had more to do than just sit at a desk and listen—listen for this. Uh, he had to be out in the freight warehouse or [<em>inaudible</em>] out—outside with the train going by or something like that, and he needed to be able to hear the dispatcher’s wire when that was happening.</p>
<p>So that, um, uh—that really changed the way that you could do that, and—and [<em>inaudible</em>] I never worked a job that didn’t have a can stuck in the resonator like that, and this—this, uh, is just the same thing and—and—[<em>tapping</em>] with a key here. I’ll move this out of the way. This—this has a key [<em>tapping</em>] and that’s the way you sound it, and you make a dot [<em>tap</em>] by closing the key [<em>tap</em>] real quickly and a dash [<em>tap</em>] by holding it down three times as long as you do for the dot, and you [<em>tapping</em>] do that to spell out, uh, everything that you want to say, and, like texters today, we use a lot of abbreviations. As a matter of fact, many of the abbreviations that texters are using were being used by telegraphers a hundred years ago, but, this is the key [<em>tap</em>] and this is the sounder, and then this called a bug, and it’s called a bug because the logo is a beetle, and nobody knows why they chose that as their logo, but they did.</p>
<p>It started out—if you—if you worked 8 hours or 12 hours a day, which, uh, up until the Hours of Service [HOS] law went into effect in 1908, that’s, uh—you worked 12 hours a day, [<em>tapping</em>] and you worked 12 hours a day with this up and down motion you—you developed telegrapher’s paralysis. We call it carpel tunnel syndrome now, but it was telegrapher’s paralysis then [<em>tapping</em>], and so they began experimenting what you could do to—to alleviate it, and the first thing they did was turn the key on its side and work it back and forth, and they kept working with it and eventually came into this form, and this is now called a vi—a—a speed key, and I can’t demonstrate because my power somehow or another is not working here today [<em>tapping</em>], but, um, you—the speed key—if—if I want to make a—a series of dots with—with this straight key [<em>tapping</em>], it goes like that, but, with the speed key, I can do it just [<em>tap</em>] with—with one movement of my thumb, and so, that relieved the carpel tunnel, but it also speeded everything up.</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>And so, those are the—those are the—the principal instruments that—that were used by landline telegraphers, and that—the—this is called American Morse, and it was used, uh, all over—all over the world, really. It—it just changed the whole world, and then, uh, in the late 8—1800s, [Guglielmo] Marconi discovered that you could send, uh, power through the, uh—through the air and—and modulate it and—and make a—a code—send code through the air, and they did—they did that and—using a—a slightly different code. Uh, the—this code—the American Morse Code has a lot of spaces in it, which makes it, uh, uh, a lot quicker, but, with the—when it went to radio, they couldn’t tell whether the spaces were accidental or intentional, and so they eliminated the space letters and everything became, um, uh, the—the tone then—the length of the tone was—determined whether it was a dot or a dash, and that sounded like this [<em>beeping</em>], but, uh—and that’s still used by ham radio operators and all base radio stations, like your local police station and your fire stations and things of that nature, are required by the Federal Communications Commission to identify themselves every hour, and now they use a computer, but every hour on the hour, uh, these—these stations will identify themselves using International Morse Code, sending their call letters—whatever they might be, and that—your television stations, your—your commercial radio stations, they all have to do this—do that, and they do it. So that, uh, America—I mean, the International Morse Code is still in use, uh, quite a bit with ham radio operators and that. American Morse—the last known use in the United States was in 1983, but th—that was just really an anomaly, because it had—by the mid-70s it had pretty much disappeared, but there’s just this one place out in Montana that still was using it until 1983.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>That’s fantastic [<em>clears throat</em>]. Mr. McFarland, we really appreciate you sharing your story with us and demonstrating the tools of your trade.</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Well, I’m happy to do it. Happy to do it.</p>
<p><strong>Cravero<br /></strong>Alright. Well, thank you so much. That will conclude our interview and, uh, we really appreciate you being here with us.</p>
<p><strong>McFarland<br /></strong>Thank you.</p>
<div><br /><div>
<p><a title="">[1]</a> Interstate Commerce Commission.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[2]</a> Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[3]</a> April 27.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[4]</a> Also called amateur radio.</p>
</div>
<div>
<p><a title="">[5]</a> Golden Spike National Historic Site.</p>
</div>
</div>
A&P grocery
abbreviations
ACL
agency checks
Alaska
American Morse Code
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company
auditors
audits
Avon Park
Avon Park Atlantic Coast Line Train Station
barge lines
bugs
California
carpal tunnel syndrome
Central Florida Railroad Museum
Chicago, Illinois
communication limits
communications
computer-assisted train dispatching
conscription
CTS
Dallas, Texas
Department of Transportation
DOT
drafts
equal pay
extra boards
FCC
Federal Communications Commission
first solid-state amplifiers
first transcontinental telegraphs
Florida Boom
Frances Perkins Building
freight warehouses
Geoffrey Cravero
grocery clerks
grocery stores
Guglielmo Marconi
ham radio operators
ham radios
Hawaii
historical preservation
HOS
Hours of Service
ICC
International Morse Code
Interstate Commerce Commission
landline telegraphers
landline telegraphs
landline telegraphy
Montana
Morse Telegraph Club, Inc.
Nevada
Ocala
Ocala Union Station
Ohio
orlando
paid vacations
Pony Express
Prince Albert tobacco cans
railroad agents
railroad depots
Railroad Morse
Railroad Safety and Service Agent
railroad stations
railroading
railroads
railways
regulations
resonators
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan
safety inspections
SAL
Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Samuel Morse
San Francisco, California
Seaboard Air Line Depot
Seaboard Air Line Railroad
social clubs
solid-state amplifiers
sounders
South Carolina
speed keys
stagecoach routes
TAPS
Tavares & Gulf Railroad
telegraph instruments
telegraph keys
telegrapher's paralysis
telegraphers
telegraphs
telegraphy
telephones
teletypes
Tennessee
text abbreviations
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company
train depots
train dispatchers
train dispatching
train stations
trains
Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
transcontinental telegraphs
UCF
University of Central Florida
Utah
Virginia
Warren McFarland
Washington, D.C.
waybills
Western Union
Winter Garden
wireless telegraphers
wireless telegraphs
wireless telegraphy
World War II
WWII
yard checks
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/7d56d6c288e589ce4001b15c392d3a48.pdf
55030e3991a08ffe35d490cb634bf856
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
The Maitland News Collection
Alternative Title
Maitland News Collection
Subject
Maitland (Fla.)
Description
<em>The Maitland News</em> was a local newspaper originally published by the Maitland Realty Company (and later by The Maitland News Company) which began circulation in April 1926. This edition features articles on topics such as a new town water pump, an anniversary party, tax assessment complaints, WDBO radio programming, the opening of school, locally-grown fresh fruit, a church dinner, the health concerns of a local pastor, the housing arrangements of local residents, and a local events calendar. Also featured are several advertisements for local businesses.
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/113" target="_blank">Maitland Historical Museum Collection</a>, Maitland Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/112" target="_blank">Maitland Collection</a>, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/46" target="_blank">Orange County Collection</a>, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Maitland, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://artandhistory.org/maitland-history-museum/" target="_blank">Maitland Historical Museum, Art & History Museums - Maitland</a>
Curator
Settle, John
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
Poole, Leslie Kemp. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320803902" target="_blank"><em>Maitland</em></a>. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009.
"<a href="http://www.itsmymaitland.com/maitland_history.asp" target="_blank">Maitland History</a>." City of Maitland. http://www.itsmymaitland.com/maitland_history.asp.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
The Maitland News, Vol. 01, No. 20, September 18, 1926
Alternative Title
The Maitland News, Vol. 01, No. 20
Subject
Maitland (Fla.)
Description
<em>The Maitland News</em> was a local newspaper originally published by the Maitland Realty Company (and later by <em>The Maitland News</em> Company) which began circulation in April 1926. This edition features articles on topics such as a new town water pump, an anniversary party, tax assessment complaints, WDBO radio programming, the opening of school, locally-grown fresh fruit, a church dinner, the health concerns of a local pastor, the housing arrangements of local residents, and a local events calendar. Also featured are several advertisements for local businesses.
Type
Text
Source
Original 4-page newspaper edition: <em><em>The Maitland News</em></em>, Vol. 01, No. 20, September 18, 1926: Newspaper Collection, accession number 2014.002.020V, room 2, case 2, shelf 10, box GV, <a href="http://artandhistory.org/maitland-history-museum/" target="_blank">Maitland Historical Museum</a>, Art & History Museums - Maitland, Maitland, Florida.
Requires
<a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html" target="_blank">Adobe Acrobat Reader</a>
Is Part Of
Maitland News Collection, <a href="http://artandhistory.org/maitland-history-museum/" target="_blank">Maitland Historical Museum</a>, Art & History Museums - Maitland, Maitland, Florida.
<a href="http://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu//omeka2/collections/show/150" target="_blank"><em>The Maitland News</em> Collection</a>, Maitland Historical Museum Collection, Maitland Collection, Orange County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Is Format Of
Digital reproduction of original 4-page newspaper edition: <em><em>The Maitland News</em><em>, Vol. 01, No. 20, September 18, 1926. </em></em>
Coverage
Maitland, Florida
Winter Park, Florida
Publisher
The Maitland News Company
Date Created
ca. 1926-09-18
Date Issued
1926-09-18
Date Copyrighted
1926-09-18
Format
application/pdf
Medium
4-page newspaper edition
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Economics Teacher
Geography Teacher
Civics/Government Teacher
Provenance
Originally published by <em>The Maitland News</em> Company.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held by the Maitland Realty Company and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only.
Accrual Method
Donation
Curator
Settle, John
Digital Collection
<a href="http://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu//map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://artandhistory.org/" target="_blank">Art & History Museums - Maitland</a>
External Reference
Poole, Leslie Kemp. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/320803902" target="_blank"><em>Maitland</em></a>. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2009.
"<a href="http://www.itsmymaitland.com/maitland_history.asp" target="_blank">Maitland History</a>." City of Maitland. http://www.itsmymaitland.com/maitland_history.asp.
A. B. Rowland
A. E. Springer
A. M. Springer
A. W. Visor
Agnes Hill
agriculture
Alvord L. Stone
Anna B. Treat
Anna C. Stone
bank
Bank of Maitland
banking
book
Boy Scouts of America
Brown's City Store
Brown's Store
C. B. McNair
C. D. Horner
church
clergy
Clifford R. Hiatt
Donald G. Spain
E. A. Upmeyer
E. D. Visor
E. T. Owen
Edgar Allen
education
Eleanor Upmeyer
Elizabeth Treat
Ernest Upmeyer
Flora's Studio
fruit
General Electric Company
Goodyear Tires
government
Greenwood Lodge
Harold Peat
Hill School
J. A. Brown
J. C. Nicholson
J. H. Bennett
J. M. Brown
James H. Visor
Jane Conklin
Jeanette Conklin
John Nelson
Kenneth N. McPherson
L. W. Cook
Lake Faith
Lake Lily
Lena Fugate
library
local government
Louis L. Coudert
M. L. Kyle
M. P. Ponder
Maitland
Maitland Electric Shop
Maitland Garage
Maitland Library
Maitland Lumber Company
Maitland Plumbing Company
Maitland Realty Company
Mamie Fugate
Methodist
municipal government
pastor
Paul N. Howard
Presbyterian
R. A. Wheeler
real estate
Robert H. Visor
Rollins College
Rollins Press
S. B. Hill, Jr.
S. J. Stiggins
SAL
sanitarium
school
Seaboard Air Line Railroad
Stella Waterhouse
tax assessment
tax commission
taxes
The Maitland News
Town Council
W. R. Sullivan
water pump
waterworks
WDBO Radio
Winter Park
-
https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka/files/original/03f9bab217494c1158b91112ed424fdf.pdf
33ecfcf91145417f6d7aa6b501a7573a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
Oviedo Historical Society Collection
Alternative Title
Oviedo Historical Society Collection
Subject
Oviedo (Fla).
Description
The Oviedo Historical Society Collection encompasses historical artifacts donated for digitization at the Oviedo Historical Society's History Harvest in the Spring semester of 2015.
The Oviedo Historical Society was organized in November 1973 by a group of citizens. The society is a 501(3) non-profit organization. Its purpose is to help preserve the community identity of Oviedo by collecting and disseminating knowledge about local history, serve as a repository for documents and artifacts relating to Oviedo history, promote the preservation and marking of historic sites and buildings in the Oviedo area and foster interest in local, state, national, and world history.
Is Part Of
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/128" target="_blank">Oviedo Collection</a>, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Language
eng
Type
Collection
Coverage
Oviedo, Florida
Contributing Project
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
<a href="http://history.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=304" target="_blank">Dr. Connie L. Lester</a>'s Introduction to Public History course, Spring 2015
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>." Oviedo Historical Society, Inc. http://oviedohs.com/.
Adicks, Richard, and Donna M. Neely. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5890131" target="_blank"><em>Oviedo, Biography of a Town</em></a>. S.l: s.n.], 1979.
Robison, Jim. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796757419" target="_blank"><em>Around Oviedo</em></a>. 2012.
"<a href="http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68" target="_blank">History</a>." City of Oviedo, Florida. http://www.cityofoviedo.net/node/68.
"<a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3" target="_blank">RICHES Podcast Documentaries, Episode 41: Oviedo, with Dr. Richard Adicks</a>." RICHES of Central Florida. http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/audio/Ep41-Oviedo.mp3.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
529-page ledger
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
R. W. Estes Celery Company Ledger, 1947-1950
Alternative Title
R. W. Estes Celery Company Ledger
Subject
Oviedo (Fla.)
Agriculture--Florida
Farming
Farms--Florida
Farmers--Southern States
Celery
Celery industry
Shipping--Florida
Accounting--United States
Description
An account ledger for the R. W. Estes Celery Company, Estes' personal accounts, and the personal accounts of Estes' wife, Ruth H. Estes. R. W. Estes Celery Company was a celery growing and shipping business in Oviedo, Florida. The R. W. Estes Celery Company Precooler Historic District is located at 159 North Central Avenue and was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on September 20, 2001.
Type
Text
Source
Original ledger: <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida.
Is Part Of
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>, Oviedo, Florida.
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/omeka2/collections/show/147" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society Collection</a>, Oviedo Collection, Seminole County Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.
Is Format Of
Digital reproduction of original ledger.
Coverage
R. W. Estes Celery Company, Oviedo, Florida
Creator
R. W. Estes Celery Company
Contributor
Sladek, Megan
Date Created
ca. 1947-1950
Format
application/pdf
Extent
87.1 MB
Medium
529-page ledger
Language
eng
Mediator
History Teacher
Economics Teacher
Provenance
Originally created by R. W. Estes Celery Company.
Owned by Megan Sladek.
Donated to the <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> in 2015.
Rights Holder
Copyright to this resource is held the <a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a> and is provided here by <a href="http://riches.cah.ucf.edu/" target="_blank">RICHES of Central Florida</a> for educational purposes only.
Accrual Method
Donation
Contributing Project
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
Curator
Cepero, Laura
Digital Collection
<a href="https://richesmi.cah.ucf.edu/map/" target="_blank">RICHES MI</a>
Source Repository
<a href="http://oviedohs.com/" target="_blank">Oviedo Historical Society</a>
External Reference
"<a href="http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/FL/Seminole/districts.html" target="_blank">FLORIDA - Seminole County - Historic Districts </a>." National Register of Historic Places. http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/FL/Seminole/districts.html.
. A. Harris
A. Aulin
A. Duda and Sons
A. E. Bramble and Son
A. H. Malcom Company
A. J. Lossing Transfer and Storage
A. J. Peterson
A. K. Rossetter
A. W. Towne Agency
Abbott & Cobb
ACL
Adkins and Adkins Company
agriculture
Airplane Dusting Service of Zellwood
Alex Leinhart
American Red Cross
American Rug and Linoleum Company
Anderson Brothers
Andrew Carraway Agency
Annie C. Merriweather
Annie Laura Bennett
Annie May Davis
Antioch Missionary Baptist Church
Arch Eug. and Construction Company
Asa Pendleton
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company
Austin, Inc.
B. E. Taylor
B. J. Ward
B. Jones
Bailey Motor Company
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Bank of Zephyrhills
Beggs Company
Ben G. Wainwright
Ben Jones
Ben Jones Drug Company
Bertha Mason
Bethel Methodist Church
Bill Crey
Bill Slater
Bisese & Console
Black Hammock Drainage Fund
Block B
Blunk Furniture Company
BO
Bob Jones University
Borden's Dairy
Boy Scouts of American
Brainard and Horne Trucking Company
Britt Tractor Company
Brown and Loe, Inc.
Buster Henderson
Byron Thompson and Company, Inc.
C. D. Beggs
C. G. Rakeshaw
C. G. Shaffer
C. Henderson
C. O. Smith
C. R. Clonts
C. R. Clonts and Associates
C. T. Nublack
C. T. Walker Radiator Shop
C. W. Baker
cabbage
California Spray and Chew Company
Camp Bearwalla
Carraway & Smothers
Caruso Fruit Distributors
celery
Celery City Printing Company
celery industry
Cell-u-Mop Company
Central Avenue
Central City Bag Company
Central Florida Bag Exchange
Central Florida Quick Freeze and Storage Company
Charles G. Shaffer
Charles J. Collins
Charles T. Niblack
Chase and Company
Cherrito Celery Company
Chester D. Hiatt
Citizens Bank of Oviedo
City Ice and Fuel Company
Clarence Ashe
Clarence Henderson
Cleveland Celery Market
Clontz Zellwood Farms
Commissioner on Claims
Community Church
Community Produce Company
Consumers Lumber and Veneer Company, Inc.
Cook's Pharmacy
Cook's Prescription Stop
Cooperative Inspection Fund
Crawford Amoco Service
D. Caruise
D. R. Ulrey
D. Rubey
D'Arrigo Brothers Company
Demase and Manna
Dick Harrow
Dorothy Pulmley
DOT
Duda Tire Sales, Inc.
Dunham concrete Company
E. G. Kilpatrick, Jr.
E. L. Kempf
E. P. Collins
E. Williams
Earl Higgingbotham
Earnest Ingram
Eastwest Produce
Econlockhatchee Hunt Club
Elberta Crate and Box Company
Eleanor Lotz
Elwyn Evans
Estes, Ulrey, & Gore
Evelyn Williams
F. A. Long Farm
F. Washington
Falkner, Inc.
farm
Farm and Home Irrigation Supplies
Farm and Home Machinery Company, Inc.
farmer
farming
Farnell's Grocery
feed
Fernald Laughton
fertilizer
Fields Firestone Store
Firestone Stores, Inc.
First National Bank
First National Bank of Orlando
Florida Bank and Trust Company
Florida Farmer Corporation
Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association
Florida Fruit Digest Company
Florida Power Corporation
Florida State Bank
Florida State Bank of Sanford
flower
Food Machinery Corporation
Frank Marshall
Fred Diplin
Fred Washington
freight
Frisco
G. C. Williams
G. J. Rhodes
G. M. Arie
Garrett-Holmes, Inc.
George A. Speer, Jr.
George Armistead Smathers
George D. Daudes
George H. Spohn
George Jakobian
Georgia Crate and Basket Company
Gibbs Corporation
Gibbs Machine Company Shop
Good Neighbors Magazine
Grace C. Hardy
Grady Page
Grant Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church
Grant Chapel AME Church
Great Southern Stores, Inc.
grower
Growers and Shippers League of Florida
growing
Gulf Fertilizer Company
H. & W. B. Drew Company
H. M. Gleason
H. P. Newhouse
H. P. Newhouse Celery Company
H. T. Kitson
H. W. Lowell
Haley Stewart Electric Company
Halloway Concrete Products
Harry Becker
Harry Beeker and Company
Harry P. Leu
Hays and Russell, Inc.
Hazel W. Nowell
Heintzelman Motors, Inc,
Helen E. Leinhart
Henry A. Russell Seed Company
Henry Detriville
Hern's Photo Supply
Hiatt's Dairy
Hill Implement Company
Hinky Dinky Stores
Howard Gould
Howard Young
Hubert Lee Gray
Hungerford School
Hunt Mercury Company
Hunt's Garage
Hunt's Tuxedo Feed Store
Hutchinson Tractor Equipment Company
ICRR
Illinois Central Railroad
Independent Supply Company
Industrial Equipment Company
insecticide
insurance
Internal Revenue Service
Ira Tossie
IRS
J. A. Harris
J. Baker
J. C. Faircloth
J. C. Hutchinson
J. C. Kassell
J. D. Dillon and Sous Stores Company
J. D. Driggers
J. D. Moore
J. E. Clontz
J. E. Jackson
J. F. Wilson
J. Frank Wilson
J. Miller
J. R. Chappell
J. W. Craddock
J. William Martin
J. Y. Harris
Jack C. Kassell
Jack C. Kendall
Jack F. Wakeman
Jack Gore
James Apothecary
James Craddock
James Gilbert Lyerly
James H. Gut Agency
James Miller
Jim Wilson
Jimmie Cowan
Joe Leinhart
Joe Merritt
Joe Priest
John A. Eick
John Deere
John L. Galloway
John Miceli
John Rocher Chappell
Jones and McLaughlin Trucking Service
Jones Prescription Shop
Joseph L. Stecher
K. Brown
K. C. Baker
Karl Daul
Karl Schneeder
Kay Estes
Kennong Bearing Service
Kilgore Seed Company
Kingman and Hearty, Inc.
Kissam Builders Supply Company
Kooter Brown
Krick Weather Service, Inc. J. H. Daniell
Kroger Company
L. A. Hardy
L. W. Wilkerson
labor
LaJune Estes
Lake Charm Fruit Company
Lake Jessup
Lakeland Cash Feed Company
Lee Brothers
Lee Daniels
Leight Banana Case Company
Leinhart Floral Gardens
Leland Chubb, Jr.
Lena I. Hunt
Levy Grant
Lloyd's Furniture Company
Loniel E. Metcalf
Lonnie Wilkerson
Lot 26
Lot 3
Lot 45
Louis Roesch Company
lumber
M. C. Hagan
M. L. Gore
M. M. Estes
M. P. Mickler Company, Inc. G. M. Arie
M. Roth
M. Vinson
Mallory
Mamie Allen
Mandell
March of Dimes
Martin
Martin Equipment Company
Mary I. Young
Mary King
Masonic Home Endowment Fund
Mathers
Mattie McCoy
Max Leinhart
Medlock Tractor Company
Megan Sladek
Mercury 6
Merrill Wattles
Methodist Church of Oviedo
Mill Suppliers, Inv.
Millikan Brothers Garage
Milton Gore
Miracle Concrete Company
Mitchell Company
Monroe Vinson
Montgomery Ward Company
Morgan
Morgan Tire and Battery Company
Mount Zion Baptist Church
National Bellas Hess
National Marketing Company
National Society for Crippled Children
Nelson and Company, Inc.
New York Life Insurance Company
New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company
O. P. Hendon
O'Neal Branch Company
Orange Belt Truck and Track company
Orange Memorial Hospital
Orlando Farm Equipment Store
Orlando Forge
Orlando Office Supply Company
Oviedo
Oviedo Baseball Club
Oviedo Drug Company
Oviedo Farm Equipment Store
Oviedo Garage
Oviedo Lumber and Supply Company
Oviedo Lumber Company
Oviedo School
Oviedo Service Station
P. C. McMichen
P. C. McMicher
P. H. Lansing's Garage
P. I. Oviedo Drug Store for Medicine
Patrick Fruit Company
Paul E. Mary
Paul W. Heasley
Paymaser Corporation
payroll
pecan
Pennie Olliff
Pennsylvania Railroad Company
Pentland and Gray
Pere Marquette
Perkinson-Robison
Peter P. Volante
Peter P. Volaute
Peter S. Schaulan
Phillip Zwigg
Pioneer Fruit
Plywood Industries, Inc.
Produce Reporter Company
Prudential Insurance Company
Public Relations Service
R. C. DeGuehery
R. H. Johnson
R. K. Evans
R. L. Ragsdale
R. L. Scarick
R. L. Slavik
R. L. Stephens
R. N. Fisk Company
R. R. Bass
R. R. Stephens
R. S. Carlson
R. S. Woodruff
R. W. Estes
R. W. Estes Celery Company
Ralph Sirianni
Ratliff and Sons
Ray Clontz, Jr.
Remington-Rend, Inc.
Reynolds Produce company
Rice, Frew, and Rice Company, Inc.
Richard Allen
Richard H. Walker, Jr.
Roger W. Gidley
Rome Lincoln Mercury company
Ruby H. Estes
Russell R. Jones
Rutland's
S. E. Parker
S. F. Long
SAL
Salvation Army
Samuel P. Mandell
San Juan Drug company
Sanford Produce Company
Sarah Vinson
Seaboard Air Line Railroad
Sears, Roebuick, and Company
Seatt Mill Work Company
Seminole County Chamber of Commerce
Seminole County Farm Bureau
Seminole County Motors
Seminole County Tuberculosis Health Association
Seminole Truck and Tractor Company
Senter Brothers
Seventeen Magazine
Sherman Concrete Company
shipper
shipping
Smathers for Senate Club
Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company
Southern Chemicals, Inc.
Southern Crate and Veneer Company
Southern Pipe and Supply company
St. Louis-San Francisco Railway
Standard Growers' Association
Standard Oil Company
Stanley P. Curtis
Stephens Brothers
Steward
Stock Yard District Agency
Strickland-Morrison, Inc.
Super Concrete, Inc.
Swift and Company
T. Cobb
Texas Company
Thad L. Lingo
The Lions club
The Orlando Morning Star Sentinel
The Sanford Herald
The Shoe Box
Theodore Glassmire
Thomas H. Daniell
Thomas H. Daniell, Jr.
Thomas Lumber and Supply Company
Thomas Moon
Tilden
Tilden Tiling
Title Guaranty and Abstract Company of Sanford
Town of Oviedo
Treasurer of the United States
U.S. Collector of Internal Revenue
U.S. Department of the Treasury
USDOT
V. H. Slay
W. A. Meek
W. A. Teague
W. C. Hutchinson
W. F. Maulding
W. G. Kilby
W. J. Chance
W. j. Flowers
W. J. Lawton
W. L. Daniels
W. T. Whitehead
W. Vincent Roberts
wage
Walker Fertilizer Company
Walton Wall
Ward's Garage
Ward's Garage and Filing Station
warehouse
warehousing
Wesco Foods
Wesley Reddick
Wesleyan College
Western Union Telegraph Company
Wheeler
William C. Hutchinson
William Enderlsin and Company
Willie Cray
Willie Daniell
Wilson-Horne
Winpark Roofing company
Womarath
Woody's Radio Shop
Yoriville
Young Harris Supply Company
Yowell-Drew Ivey Company