The Naming of BITHLO, Florida

The NAMING of BITHLO, FLORIDA

Rick’s Blog first published August, 2014

By Richard Lee Cronin

The vision of BITHLO as a great East Orange County metropolis was likely not hers, but the town’s name – that definitely was the idea of, “the richest lady in the world!” She was most certainly the First Lady of BITHLO.

Had a town BITHLO existed prior to 1915, evidence of such has not been found. The first recorded plat of this city was 1919, although as mentioned in Part 3, the plat also suggests something resembling a town pre-dated that filing. William F. Blackman, in his 1927 History of Orange County, (1915) mentions the town’s beginning, writing that BITHLO’S origin coincided with the “opening of the railroad that year”. The first train however actually arrived before 1915!

Henry Flagler had announced plans for his ‘Okeechobee Branch’ in 1910, and began accumulating right-of-way agreements. By 1911, Flagler had obtained permission to cross land then owned by William Vom Scheidt, land that was to become the future site of BITHLO. Agreements required Flagler’s train to be running by January 1, 1914 to as far as Wewahotee, a town to be located south of BITHLO. Farther south still, we know the first train arrived at Lake Okeechobee, the final destination of that railroad branch line, on September 14, 1914.

The dates cited are significant because Henry Flagler died May 20, 1913, and he had been bedridden since March of that same year. A Sun Sentinel article of July 2, 1989 tells of the astonishing events that followed Henry’s death. His Widow, Mary Kenan Flagler, became owner of Florida East Coast Railroad, four million acres of land, eleven hotels and assets that included Florida Power & Light Company and the Miami Herald newspaper. Mary Kenan Flagler’s wealth was valued at $6 billion in today’s currency.

Widow Mary Flagler died a mysterious death in July, 1917, but between May, 1913 and 1917, that particular window of time during which a train began serving BITHLO, Mary was heralded as “the richest lady in the world.” Mary (Kenan) Flagler, first Lady of BITHLO, the richest Lady in the world, was in control of Florida East Coast Railroad the day her train first pulled into a new railway depot called BITHLO.

BITHLO, a City with a VISION! Leave it to an eye doctor to coin such a corny slogan.

Tracks first laid down by Flagler’s railroad have long since been removed, replaced with two-lanes, straight-as-an-arrow highway to nowhere, called “old State Road 13”. Aerial photo of BITHLO today shows that highway slicing through BITHLO’S remaining 26 east-west numbered Avenues.

The railroad is long gone, but Flagler’s train breathed life into an early 20^th Century community founded after the train arrived, by two partners, one an Optic’s Doctor and the other a Dentist.

BITHLO came into its own under a partnership of Stacy P. BAILEY and Elmer W. LOTT. Lott was an Orlando dentist, Bailey an eye doctor. A charter was issued in 1922 for Town of BITHLO, and on April 5^th of that same year BITHLO Post Office opened. Between the years 1921 and 1925, the Orlando based partners filed nine additional plat revisions, each an expansion of their BITHLO metropolis.

An April 2, 1925 full page advertisement for BITHLO tells of their accomplishments out in the barren wilderness of East Orange County. They had 6 ½ miles of paved streets, were in the process of building an 18 Hole golf course, and had sold town lots to “more than 3,000” people all across America. BITHLO’S advertisement proclaimed itself the City with a Vision, serviced by Florida East Coast Railroad and the new Cheney-Dixie Highway (now Highway 50), officially christened December 31, 1924.

A month after this BITHLO advertisement, in either the smartest or luckiest move ever for Bailey & Lott, the partners sold their land development company. A consortium of investors, led by Massachusetts Banker Lindsey Hooper, and unaware Florida’s Great Land Boom was already gasping its final breadths, became the last owner of a metropolis that simply was not meant to be.

A land sales slowdown that began in 1925 died in 1926. The final spike in Florida’s Great Land Boom coffin was the Great Hurricane of 1926. Having winds of 125 mph, killing 115 at Miami and destroying 13,000 homes, the horrendous storm then travelled inland, causing a tidal wave at Lake Okeechobee that drowned 300. Florida’s Land Bust and Hurricane of 1926 was then followed by the Market Crash of ’29, and adding insult to our nation’s injury, came the Great Depression of 1930’s.

Hopes and dreams of America’s Paradise crumbled again. A scribbled note at the top of a page of Orange County’s 1935 Census provides a brief but final epitaph for the East Orange County community, for it states, “Bithlo Charter Surrendered.”

FIRST ROAD TO ORLANDO, a 28 mile dirt trail, was rendered obsolete the very day South Florida Railroad (SFRR) departed Sanford, Florida, heading southbound toward the Orange County Seat at ORLANDO. This one trail had served American Indians, the US Military, government surveyors, and the earliest of settlers for nearly 40 years before the first train ever began running. A true story of THE FIRST ROAD TO ORLANDO, this book tells of the earliest towns along that dirt road: Mellonville, Fort Reid, Rutledge, Maitland, Orlando and Fort Gatlin, and tells too of how each town got its name – including the mysterious naming of ORLANDO! More than history, this is the captivating story of the first days of Central Florida. Visit my First Road website for more information and reviews. www.croninbooks.com/FIRST-ROAD.html