A
240 acre Town Plat of CRESTON was
recorded with Orange County’s Clerk of Court on the 1st day of
April, 1887. Now a Ghost Town, Creston of the 19th Century was intended to be a key railroad hub. Situated on the east side of Johns Lake, bordering also the north shore of Black Lake, the new city’s intended
role was to play a role in opening up West Orange County for development, a plan evidenced by an abundance of historical documents including the town’s name itself.
1890 Town of CRESTON, Florida, at center of map above
Central Florida’s legendary
James G. SPEER filed his plat of Oakland after Creston had been
filed. Oakland was recorded July 12, 1887,
103
days after Creston, making Creston
the earliest planned official town of West Orange County.
Plats indicate Oakland as being larger, but each town shared one attention-grabbing
feature – a railroad. Two different
railroads at that!
The primary distinction between
Speer’s Oakland and Town of Creston was
that Oakland had an operating train. Orange Belt Railway had begun service
from Sanford on Lake Monroe south to Speer’s Oakland in late fall 1886. The planned railroad for Creston however never happened.
Still, despite Creston planners failing to establish a
successful town, their 1887 plat tells wonders about one long-forgotten
Chapter in West Orange County’s intriguing history. Dates truly matter when tracking
history. Consider Creston, founded
in 1887. The town plat shows an
intriguing alignment for a planned railroad, and even names the railroad. The
letters TA&GRR (see circled letters
on Plat). The abbreviated letters are for ‘Tavares, Apopka & Gulf Railroad,’
but that train, at that place and at that time, challenges
that was known about this region’s history.
To appreciate the
significance, we must first differentiate between TO&A, TA&G and T&G. All three call letters
identify trains. The ‘Tavares, Orlando
& Atlantic Railroad (TO&A)’,
operated between Tavares and Orlando, but north of Lake Apopka; Tavares, Apopka & Gulf Railroad (TA&GRR), operated along the west
side of Lake Apopka, from Tavares south to Montverde, where it was intended to veer westward to Clermont, and ultimately continue west
to the Gulf of Mexico. After going
into foreclosure in 1890, the TA&GRR reemerged a year later as Tavares & Gulf Railroad (T&G). The revived T&G did enter Orange County, but
didn’t reach Oakland until 1891, Winter Garden in 1899, and finally Ocoee
by 1914.
1887 Plat of Town of CRESTON, Orange County, Florida
The 1887 plat of Creston
however shows the original TA& GRR
as planning a stop southeast of Oakland
four years before the revived T&G railway finally arrived at Oakland. Why
does this matter? The Creston Plat establishes
that planners had switched directions for the TA&GRR long before the
railway filed for foreclosure in 1890.
Prior to 1880, Central Florida growth had been
lethargic. Transportation, or the lack thereof, was the principal reason for lackluster
growth throughout the region. A decade earlier, creditors had obtained an
injunction preventing the State from issuing public lands to entice building
railroads. Typically, land was the reward to investors willing to foot the bill
to lay down track. But Florida’s Post-Civil War debt had yet to be paid off,
and the court injunction because of that unpaid debt hindered would-be railroad
builders. Enter Henry Disston, the
man who saved the day!
Disston changed everything in 1881
by depositing with the State his first installment on a pledge to acquire 4,000,000 acres of public land, money
used to eliminate Florida’s debt. Much of the acreage was in South Orange
County, land that became Osceola County
May 12, 1887. More than paying off
debt though, Disston had big plans for Osceola County, and he needed railroads to
deliver customers interested in buying his lands.
Florida Midland Railway originally intended to operate between Lake Jesup and Leesburg, but the east-west railroad abruptly turned south, passing
through Ocoee and Gotha on its way to Disston’s new town
of Kissimmee. South Florida Railroad had already extended its service from Orlando to Kissimmee in 1882.
In West Orange County, Orange Belt Railway was well ahead of TA&GRR in laying down track toward
the Gulf of Mexico. Palatka Daily News, May 28, 1887, wrote: “The Orange Belt
Railroad is displaying wonderful activity. 1,800
men are at work along the line between Oakland
and Pinellas.” Orange Belt
Railway squeezed out the Tavares competition at Clermont, requiring an immediate change in direction of the TA&GRR if it hoped to survive.
Tavares founders believed their city provided a better alternative to
the combination steamboat and train through Sanford. Planned as a hub for multiple land based railroads, Tavares
offered a direct land route to Jacksonville. The TA&GRR had arrived at the doorstep of Orange County when it
found it could not continue westward, so a change of direction was needed. Now
enter the New Hampshire Attorney, Harry
BINGHAM.
Bingham bought 1,756 acres south of present day Winter Garden, with the first
acquisition occurring October 30, 1882.
In rapid succession, other investors began buying land surrounding Bingham’s
property: Anthony H. SEIPT, President
of Perkiomon Railroad of
Pennsylvania, purchased 5,336 acres,
and Charles H. Morse of Winter Park, acting as Trustee for
himself and partners Franklin Fairbanks
and Francis B. Knowles, bought up 9,901 acres.
By mid-1883, an enormous swath of West Orange
County, 17,000 acres in all, belonged
to five (5) Northerners. Oakland and Winter Garden did not yet exist as towns. Another land sale the
same year, finalized October 5, 1883,
conveyed 120 acres to an individual
identified only as F. A. RUSH.
Fannie A. RUSH, wife of Dr. Warren B. RUSH, had acquired the first of several
parcels, land that would exceed 500
acres by 1884. Warren & Fannie RUSH
then sold 40 acres March 25, 1886 to Margaret A. BLACK of Scotland, a parcel that was
adjacent to 40 acres acquired by
George BLACK, land that today would
be adjacent to Black Lake.
Five (5) months after recording their plat, Dr. Warren & Fannie RUSH
closed on the first town lot sale. The date was August 27, 1887, and B. N. ZERKLE was
the buyer of “Lots 90 & 94 in Block B of Town of Creston.”
Dr. RUSH and wife Fannie
came to Orange County from Sidney, Iowa,
arriving around the same time as their 1883
land acquisitions. Residents of Sidney in 1880,
their life on the prairielands had changed abruptly.
Outlaws Wells & Norris
robbed nearby Davis & Sexton Bank in Riverton in 1881, using horses stolen from Sidney. After capture, both bandits were
returned to Sidney. Though the desperados had been caught, the RUSH family
residence was amid the turmoil of the wild, wild-west. And so Dr. Warren &
Fannie (ASHER) RUSH moved to Central Florida, and along with them came John A. ASHER.
The RUSH clan likely
departed Iowa aboard the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and no doubt had a layover at a town
established by the CB&Q – a site
selected for a hub by the railroad because of its location - a “division point, on a crest of land between the basins of the Mississippi and Missouri
rivers. By the 180os”’, says Amtrak Station Facts, “the town of CRESTON, Iowa had become a major rail hub.”
Acreage selected by Warren
B. & Fannie A. RUSH, and the adjacent parcels acquired by John A. ASHER,
were strategically located as well, midway between TAVARES and KISSIMMEE City,
the perfect location for CRESTON,
Florida.
1890 Lake County Map showing TA&GRR in Orange County
An 1890 Lake County map shows the (TA&GRR) as entering Orange County west of Oakland, (even though this line was not built), and then veering
south along the west side of Butler
Chain of Lakes, terminating at Kissimmee
City. Had Creston materialized,
West Orange County would have developed very differently, but like many a 19th
century CitrusLAND planned town, it is today a Ghost Town.
Research for the Town of
Creston was donated in 2015 by this author to:
WINTER GARDEN HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Visit www.CroninBooks.com and peruse: The Rutland Mule Matter; CitrusLAND;
Ghost Towns & Phantom Trains; First
Road to Orlando; CitrusLAND: Curse
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