For a brief moment in Orange County’s remarkable history,
Alice C. (FORBES) HILL, a native of Georgia, envisioned a town of 120 acres at
the crossroads of ORANGE BELT RAILWAY and TAVARES, ORLANDO & ATLANTIC (TO&A)
lines. Alice planned her 1887 town of TORONTO to be a vital CitrusLAND
transportation hub. She planned a UNION DEPOT, at her intersection of Toronto
Avenue and Orange Belt Avenue, where passengers and freight could be transferred
for all points within Florida and beyond.
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| Present day view looking northwest of Ghost Town Toronto |
TO&A President William R. ANNO, in 1883, reported his
railroad would soon offer “Palace Sleeping Cars” at no additional cost to its
customers, and said he planned to offer rail service, “from the Atlantic at
TITUSVILLE northwest to TAVARES, through Orange County, to connect with the
trunk lines north in the State. His railroad only managed to connect Tavares
with Orlando prior to falling into foreclosure.
Of 250 planned Town of Toronto lots only one sale was ever
recorded. Trigg Frugate & Company, an Abington, VA lumber dealer, purchased
a full block for use as a rail siding.
Today, much of the once-upon-a-time town of TORONTO serves as
a storage yard for a prefab concrete facility. The existing track in the photo
is that or the original Tavares, Orlando & Atlantic Railroad looking
northwest toward Apopka. Remnants of Orange Belt Railway track bed lead off on
the left in the direction of Lakeville, Clarcona and eventually Winter Garden.
Union Depot, had it been built, would have been located at this very location.
Toronto of Orange County, Florida, and the two railroads
serving this 19th century town, are featured on pages 100-104 of CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom
Trains.
America’s central Florida Paradise disintegrated over the winter of 1894-95! A great freeze that season destroyed not only the State’s record-setting orange crop, but wiped out as well the ambitious dreams of not only the locals, but many of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Their true-life stories are told as you journey aboard ORANGE BELT RAILWAY with two of America’s renowned railroaders.
All aboard!
Racing along at a top speed of nearly 6 mph, meet the men and women, dreamers who risked everything during the 1880’s to develop the remote wilderness along Orange County’s western corridor. With stops at Sylvan Lake; Paola; Island Lake; Glen Ethel; Palm Springs; Forest City; Toronto; Lakeville; Clarcona; Crown Point; Winter Garden and Oakland, you will experience first-hand a history of this region never before told. “Multitudes,” said 1880s resident Benjamin M. Robinson of the horrible freeze, “abandoned their groves and homes, in some cases leaving tables set and beds unmade, and went away.” CitrusLAND: Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains.
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