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Winter Park, FL

Winter Park, Florida
City
City of Winter Park
Images from top, left to right: Downtown Winter Park Historic District, Knowles Memorial Chapel, Robert Bruce Barbour House, Albin Polasek House and Studio
Flag of Winter Park, Florida
Flag
Official seal of Winter Park, Florida
Seal
Motto: "City of culture and heritage"
Location in Orange County and the state of Florida
Location in Orange County and the state of Florida
Coordinates: 28°35′46″N 81°20′48″W / 28.59611°N 81.34667°W / 28.59611; -81.34667Coordinates: 28°35′46″N 81°20′48″W / 28.59611°N 81.34667°W / 28.59611; -81.34667
Country  United States of America
State  Florida
County Orange
Established 1882
Chartered 1887
Government
 • Mayor Steve Leary
Area
 • Total 10.2 sq mi (26 km2)
 • Land 8.7 sq mi (23 km2)
 • Water 1.5 sq mi (4 km2)
Elevation 92 ft (28 m)
Population (2013)
 • Total 29,203
 • Density 3,208.4/sq mi (1,238.8/km2)
Time zone Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
 • Summer (DST) EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code(s) 32789, 32792
Area code(s) 407
FIPS code 12-78300
GNIS feature ID 0293428
Website cityofwinterpark.org

Winter Park is a suburban city in Orange County, Florida, United States. The population was 27,852 at the 2010 United States Census. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Winter Park was founded as a resort community by northern business magnates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main street includes civic buildings, retail, art galleries, a private liberal arts college, museums, a park, a train station, a golf course country club, a historic cemetery, and a beach and boat launch.

The Winter Park area's first human residents were migrant Muscogee people who had earlier intermingled with the Choctaw and other indigenous people. In a process of ethnogenesis, the Native Americans formed a new culture which they called "Seminole", a derivative of the Mvskoke' (a Creek language) word simano-li, an adaptation of the Spanish cimarrón which means "wild" (in their case, "wild men"), or "runaway" [men]. The site was first inhabited by Europeans in 1858, when David Mizell Jr. bought an 8-acre (32,000 m2) homestead between Lakes Virginia, Mizell, and Berry. A settlement, called Lake View by the inhabitants, grew up around Mizell's plot. It got a post office and a new name—Osceola—in 1870.

The area did not develop rapidly until 1880, when a South Florida Railroad track connecting Orlando and Sanford was laid a few miles west of Osceola. Shortly afterwards, Loring Chase came to Orange County from Chicago to recuperate from a lung disease. In his travels, he discovered the pretty group of lakes just east of the railbed. He enlisted a wealthy New Englander, Oliver E. Chapman, and they assembled a very large tract of land, upon which they planned the town of Winter Park. Over the next four years they plotted the town, opened streets, built a town hall and a store, planted orange trees, and required all buildings to meet stylistic and architectural standards. They promoted it heavily. During this time, the railroad constructed a depot (1882), connected to Osceola by a dirt road.


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