CENTRAL FLORIDA'S FASCINATING HISTORY: 50 STATES OF CENTRAL FLORIDA Part 13: KS, WV & NV

Builders of America’s 19^th century Florida Paradise arrived from nearly every corner of the world. Amazing dreamers and doers, these pioneers selected land locations in a wide swath of a Citrus Belt that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. A courageous bunch of guys and gals, they came to Florida from parts of every modern day State as well.

All 50 States played a role in founding central Florida, and CitrusLAND is paying tribute to the remarkable individuals from around the U. S. each Sunday throughout the summer, doing so in the order States were admitted to our Union of States. This week our spotlight shines on Kansas, State #34, admitted January 29, 1861; West Virginia, State #35, admitted June 20, 1863; and Nevada, State #36 admitted on October 31, 1864, the last State to join the Union prior to the November 1860 election of President Abraham Lincoln.

KANSAS:

“FOREST CITY is on the Orange Belt Railroad,” said the Illustrated Orange County special Chicago Expedition circular of 1893. “It has a first class Grocery Store and Post Office kept by Mr. G. W. COOLEY.” A native of New York, George W. COOLEY had followed his brother west to KANSAS in 1883, but soon then found his way to Central Florida, where he and wife Phillipina settled at John G. Hower’s town of Forest City.

The Great Freeze of 1895 however destroyed Cooley’s orange grove, and so he returned to Galena, Kansas, where he found work in soon to be depleted Kansas mines. Today, Galena of Kansas and Forest City of Central Florida share Ghost Town status. So the Cooley’s decided to give Central Florida a second chance, even giving the Orange Belt Railway a second look. George & Phillipina Cooley lived the remainder of their lives at OAKLAND, Florida. In 1908, daughter Pina Cooley married Alva, son of James & Nora Willis, then thirty year residents of Luther Tilden’s West Orange town of TILDENVILLE.

Kansas was admitted as a State three weeks after Florida decided to secede. As Civil War broke out, there lived in Canada a 2 year old boy – a youngster who soon relocated with his parents to the wide open prairies of ELLIS, Kansas. Desiring to escape those cold prairie winters, Elias followed a friend south to ACRON, in North Orange County. Elias DISNEY was the young man’s name, and after he first planted his own grove, he married his friend’s daughter, Miss FLORA CALL. Elias Disney lost his grove in the freeze of 1894-95, watched too as his town of Acron became a Ghost Town, and departed Central Florida.

Decades later his son, WALT DISNEY, would also decide to give Central Florida a second chance.

WEST VIRGINIA:

Edgar HARRISON was more than qualified for the position of PAOLA Postmaster when the proud native of WEST VIRGINIA was appointed the job on April 30, 1880. Founded by Dr. Joseph Bishop, Paola was situated on the Lake Eustis & Sanford Railroad line, six miles west of Sanford, in present day Seminole County. Edgar homesteaded 115 acres at Paola, and he was included in the town’s census of that year. Harrison, born 1833, listed his birthplace as West Virginia, slightly unusual, as the 35^th State to join our Union didn’t yet exist, not until June of 1863.

Specifying his native state as “West” Virginia was obviously important to Mr. Harrison, especially considering the man had moved out west by the time he was 18. Virginia and West Virginia split into two states during the Civil War, with the latter supporting the Union. As a citizen of Central Florida in the post-War years, Edgar Harrison’s statement about his true birthplace said volumes about the land I call CitrusLAND – America’s true-life Melting Pot. By 1880, Union and Confederate Veterans lived as neighbors.

Prior to homesteading at Paola, Harrison had been an Iowa Sheriff and politician, and soon after the freeze, Edgar departed PAOLA aboard the southbound Orange Belt, all the way to the train’s final destination, St. Petersburg. “GRANDPA” HARRISON, the St. Pete Evening Independent headline declared in January of 1912, was again running for the office of Mayor. Then Chairman of the Pinellas Democratic County committee, Edgar Harrison was 79 years young when he decided to run for office yet again.

NEVADA:

George Augustus HILL, 79 years old at the time of his death in Los Angeles, CA, had left specific instructions on what he wanted done with his cremated ashes. His family complied, placing his remains in a pre-existing grave located 450 miles east, at the town of Dayton, NEVADA, in the 36^th State to join our Union of 50 States.

The existing grave was that of his father, Cornelius A. B. HILL, a man “brutally murdered,” on April 10, 1867. Cornelius, a Silver City, NV Superintendent, was on his way home that April evening when the incident occurred. He “was a man universally esteemed”, said a Sacramento newspaper, “and his sad death and untimely fate has cast a gloom over the whole community. He leaves a wife and two children.” George and Walter were the ‘two children,’ and Ellen M. Hill was the Widow left behind by the father’s brutal murder.

Widow Ellen M. HILL brought her two sons to America’s Paradise, acquiring first a twenty (20) acre site on the outskirts of a new start-up city east of Pine Castle, FL called CONWAY. Son George A. HILL, went to work for Orange Belt Railway, starting at age 22 as a timekeeper, and by 1890. By April of 1893, Hill was listed as the Treasurer, assisting Philadelphia banker and OBRR President, Edward T. Stotesbury.

Brothers George & Walter Hill of Conway, FL

George A. Hill’s became involved with Orange Belt Railway because of Conway citrus farmer and family friend, Henry B. Sweetapple. A native of England like that of Ellen Hill, Sweetapple also relocated to central Florida from Dayton, Nevada, where he had owned a silver mine. He purchased a home at Orlando on Lake Concord, but also bought land at Oakland after investing in the Orange Belt Railway. Henry Sweetapple was Treasurer of the railroad until his death in 1887.

Widow Ellen M. Hill also relocated to Oakland from Lake Conway in 1889, acquiring Lot #1 of Block 15 from the Orange Belt Railway’s founder, Russian immigrant, Peter Demens.

George Augustus Hill always took time to return frequently to his native Nevada, making each trip specifically to visit the grave of the father he lost as a child. In 1944, George A. Hill, Jr. complied with his father’s wishes by burying his father’s ashes at Dayton, Nevada.

NEVADA mines attracted many a Florida lad to venture west in search of wealth, but a promise of becoming rich farming Florida oranges offered an alternative to those who had not been able to earn their fortune in the dangerous mine fields out west.