The First Mount Dorans
Season 2 - Part 2: Filler up Please!
Fifth Avenue (Main Street), Mount
Dora Amoco (1935)
Fifth Avenue in downtown Mount Dora is likely the last
place one would search for fuel for the family car today, but this hasn’t
always been so. There was a time when drivers seeking gas had a choice between
three ‘Filling Stations’ downtown on Fifth Avenue alone, another on Fourth,
and several others on the outskirts of town.
Directly across Fifth Avenue from Princess Theatre,
where this blog last left off, the Smith & Kirkland Amoco opened
its doors in October 1935. The building, long-since remodeled, still
stands today. Catty-cornered from the Amoco, at Fifth and Alexander Street, Mosteller
Brothers Gulf Station had already begun pumping “Good Gulf Gasoline’ a
year earlier.
“Simpson’s Fashionable Fifth Avenue,” as I refer to this
downtown artery in my upcoming Mount Dora book (75 days to book launch!), quite
suddenly became popular during the 1930s with service station operators, and
for good reason. Fifth Avenue of Mount Dora had become part of this Nation’s original
Interstate Highway System. It’s true! During the Roaring Twenties, popular named
national roads such as The Dixie Highway and Lincoln Highway, for which there were many, got
a bit out of control. Signs with arrows attached to power poles were often the
only directions available for the wandering motorist. And so, in 1927, The
Interstate Highway System eliminated named highways and began numbering roads. A fourth
“Alternate” for north-south Highway 41 became US 441, and presto, just like that, Mount Dora became
a stop on America’s new Interstate Highway System.
Dixie Highway had, prior to this, arrived in Mount Dora via present day Eleventh Avenue, a road that began life as Scott Avenue (maiden name of John Donnelly’s mother), then changed to Tavares Road. Standard Oil Company first opened a ‘Filling Station’ in 1926 at Tenth & Donnelly, saying “it is so arranged as to prove easily accessible from either the Tavares, Eustis, or local streets.” Tourists therefore first arrived at Mount Dora via old Eustis Road (at the Limit Avenue & Donnelly Street intersection today), or via Tavares Road (now Eleventh Avenue at Donnelly).
"The new railroad intersects Mrs. Donnelly's grove, running close to the dwelling."
An announcement in Mount Dora Topic of May 24,
1934, also told of change that had come to the city itself: ‘Mosteller Bros.
have taken over the Gulf Service Station on the Federal and State Highway, at
the corner of Fifth Avenue and Alexander Street.” Fifth Avenue, which originally
terminated in the west at Lake Dora’s edge, was made part of a new lakeshore
highway running west to Tavares. This road became US 441 – the “Federal Highway”,
which then delivered tourists into Mount Dora via Fifth Avenue.
Brothers Ernest (1903-1952) and Andrew (1896-1958)
Mosteller had opened a service garage in 1925 at Fourth and Baker. But the
brothers soon realized the place to be in 1934 to pump gas was on the new Federal
Highway, aka, US 441, aka, “Simpson’s Fashionable Fifth Avenue.”
Tourists arriving from the north in the 1930s were
entertained first by splendid views of Lake Dora as they drove east from
Tavares, and then, as they rounded the corner onto Fifth Avenue in their
approach to Mount Dora, visitors were greeted next by one the city’s earliest hotels - just before arriving at Mosteller’s Gulf Station or the Smith & Kirkland Amoco, where they could fuel up.
Chances are, if the new arrivals stopped for gas and a
recommendation on where to stay the night, they would be directed to the neighboring
hotel, the one with that “grand-view’ of Lake Dora. We too are heading there next,
when this series returns September 1, 2021.
Season One of this First Mount Doran Series began a historic Mount Dora Fifth Avenue walk first taken in 1848 by Surveyor James M. Gould. We began the walk at Tremain Street & 5th Avenue, and trekked westward toward Lake Dora. We are getting ever closer to the lake’s edge, and ever closer to the launch date of my next book. 300 Plus Pages! Includes Exhibits, and Extensive Bibliography for those who question the history, and a convenient Topic Index to easily locate people, places, and events.
Want to know more about my book and its availability, email me at MountDora@CroninBooks.com
MOUNT DORA
The
Lure. The Founding. The Founders.
By
the author of Tavares: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County
Official
Book Launch Monday, November 1, 2021
The
Green Room, Mount Dora Community Center
Request
details at MountDora@CroninBooks.com
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