SEMINOLE COUNTY AT A GLANCE LAND AREA: 298 SQUARE MILES ALTAMONTE SPRINGS Although Altamonte Springs was incorporated in 1920, its population totaled only 5,000 as recently as 1970. But that was before developers turned this erstwhile whistle stop into a thriving suburb. Today, Altamonte Springs, population 42,300, is known primarily for the Altamonte Mall, built in 1974 as the area's first regional mall, and for the presence of virtually every chain eatery in the world. Many of the city's subdivisions can be found along Palm Springs Drive, Maitland Avenue and Montgomery Road, not far from the mall. Some of the older developments are nestled around hidden lakes that seem far removed from the hustle and bustle. Multifamily housing also is plentiful, with no fewer than 30 apartment developments located within the city limits, primarily along Semoran Boulevard, also known as S.R. 436. Apartment living, plus the convenience of shopping and entertainment venues, has made Altamonte Springs popular among young adults. But because no city wants its identity tied entirely to a mall, local officials are focusing on a 25-acre project called Uptown Altamonte, which would shift the focus toward adjacent Crane's Roost Park and its 40-acre manmade lake. Uptown Altamonte, a $250 million partnership between the city's Community Redevelopment Agency and Unicorp National Developments, will encompass 1.5 million square feet of retail space, offices and condominiums. CASSELBERRY Founded by World War I veteran Hibbard Casselberry, who in 1926 bought 3,000 acres to grow ferns, Casselberry emerged as a suburban residential community after World War II. By the time it was incorporated, in 1965, Casselberry encompassed a number of family-oriented subdivisions and a budding business district near the intersection of S.R. 436 and U.S. 17-92. In the decades that followed, the city continued to grow-the population today stands at more than 22,000-but it became almost indistinguishable from surrounding unincorporated areas. Finally, however, this quintessential bedroom community is set to reclaim its distinctive identity. Unicorp National Developments is set to buy 16 acres from the city on which it will develop a $42 million, mixed-use project with town homes, restaurants, offices and retail space. The city also plans a 30,000-square-foot community center for the site, which is near U.S. 17-92 and Lake Triplett Drive. In addition, a park just north of City Hall is being revamped and expanded to include an amphitheater on Lake Concord. The new and improved facility will host the city's biannual jazz fest as well as a chili cook-off, art shows and other special events. Casselberry's renaissance is also being bolstered by the redevelopment of the old Seminole Greyhound Park property off Seminola Boulevard. Legacy Park will contain single-family homes and town homes as well as commercial and retail space and a park. Centex Homes is the primary builder. Casselberry has 15 parks, more than two dozen lakes and a municipal golf course within its city limits. Adjacent to Casselberry is unincorporated Fern Park, which, as the name suggests, also traces its beginnings to the fern-growing industry. Like Casselberry, it developed into a bedroom community for Orlando starting in the 1950s. The community, which has floundered somewhat in recent years, is in line for a boost thanks to improvements on U.S. 17-92, which will include wider sidewalks and decorative streetlights. And a long-abandoned Kmart plaza fronting the highway may soon be bought and redeveloped by home-improvement chain Lowe's. LAKE MARY Lake Mary is one of Central Florida's hottest growth areas, thanks in large part to the dogged persistence of Jeno Paulucci, a blustery self-made millionaire who made his first fortune selling frozen Chinese food and a second one selling frozen pizza. The city today sits at the epicenter of Florida's High-Tech Corridor, which follows I-4 from Tampa through Seminole County and northeast to Daytona Beach and Melbourne. Along the route, government and industry have joined forces to attract leading-edge companies in such fields as telecommunications, medical technology and microelectronics. In Lake Mary, population 14,000, dozens of such companies have set up shop in several sprawling business centers that have combined to create a Central Florida version of Silicon Valley. But it all started as an isolated railroad station known as Bents, the surname of a local grove owner. In 1900, industry arrived in Bents when Planters Manufacturing Company built a factory to produce starches, dextrines, farina and tapioca. The facility closed in 1910, however, and Bents-later renamed Lake Mary, for the wife of a local pastor-seemed destined to remain an out-of-the-way country town. That was the case for another half-century, until the construction of I-4 and a successful campaign by community boosters to get a Lake Mary interchange tacked on to the project. The resulting tracts of easily accessible land caught the eye of Paulucci, founder of Chun King. In the late 1970s he announced plans to build a luxurious residential development and business hub called Heathrow. Few thought the audacious Paulucci would be successful, and the project floundered at first. But then the plainspoken old salesman quieted naysayers by persuading the American Automobile Association to relocate from suburban Washington, D.C., to his Heathrow Business Center. The AAA coup, at that time Central Florida's most important corporate relocation in decades, jump-started Heathrow and opened the door for all the business and residential development that followed. Of course, all those high-paid techies who now call Lake Mary home require upscale housing, which is easily found through an array of gated golf course communities loaded with swim and tennis clubs, private lakes and jogging trails through nature preserves. Lake Mary officials are using a $100,000 federal grant to advance plans to redevelop the old downtown area to better reflect the city's prosperous image. Yet another Lake Mary town center is under way at Colonial Town Park, a 175-acre mixed-use development at a new I-4 interchange. The development features shops, restaurants and apartments in a village setting. LONGWOOD Of all Seminole County's municipalities, Longwood, population 13,700, has the most history to preserve-and has done the best job of preserving it. But it's still a modern place, with a plethora of exclusive country club communities, office parks and shopping centers. In 1873 a New Englander named Edward Henck homesteaded a tract of land that he named Longwood, after a Boston suburb he had helped plan. Henck was also the town's first postmaster and its first mayor. And in what may have been his spare time, Henck co-founded the South Florida Railroad and built a line connecting Sanford and Orlando, which enabled Longwood to boom as a citrus- and lumber-shipping center as well as a winter resort destination. But as crucial as Henck was to Longwood's development, it was a carpenter named Josiah Clouser, a Henck employee, whose legacy is most visible. Clouser, a Pennsylvanian, constructed most of the buildings still standing in Longwood's remarkable historic district. The district is a two-block area on Warren and Church avenues near the intersection of C.R. 427 and C.R. 434. Popular annual events include the Longwood Arts and Crafts Festival, held the weekend before Thanksgiving, and the Founders Day Spring Arts and Crafts Festival, held in March. On the outskirts of the city toward neighboring Apopka in Orange County is Wekiva Springs State Park. And on General Hutchinson Avenue is Big Tree State Park, home of "The Senator," said to be the oldest and largest cypress tree in the state. OVIEDO While Oviedo might be one of Central Florida's oldest communities-it was first settled some 140 years ago-this Seminole County boomtown knows how to embrace newcomers. Indeed, few Central Florida municipalities have witnessed the kind of growth Oviedo has seen in recent years. The town's population is closing in on 30,000-more than a tenfold increase since 1980. Oviedo's growth was a long time coming. The area's first settlers, who put down stakes near Lake Jesup in the 1860s, called it Solary's Wharf. In 1883 postmaster Andrew Aulin dubbed it Oviedo, supposedly after seeing a Spanish town of the same name on a map. Then, after the railroad arrived in 1886, the town became a major shipping point for both celery and citrus. Among the early settlers was Andrew Duda Sr., who made his fortune growing celery and founded A. Duda and Sons, today one of the world's largest growers of sod. Longtime locals point to 1964 as perhaps the most significant year in Oviedo's history. That's when a desolate 1,145-acre tract in rural northeast Orange County, about seven miles east of the city, was selected as the site for Florida Technological University (now the University of Central Florida). Initially, the carpetbagging Ph.D.s and the wary farmers made an unlikely combination. But they were united by their desire to maintain Oviedo's small-town ambiance and to cling to its agricultural heritage. Indeed, the biggest worry among many longtime residents these days is that Oviedo's sleepy old downtown might go the way of the long-gone orange groves and celery fields. Oviedo Place, a.k.a. "the new downtown," is planned for what's now a tangerine grove just north of Mitchell Hammock Road. Not that the old downtown is particularly quaint. For those just passing through who are forced to stop at the gnarly intersection of state roads 419, 426 and 434, there's not a lot to catch the eye: the Town House restaurant, a huge Baptist church and a two-block row of fading cinder-block buildings housing an assortment of mom-and-pop businesses. Drivers must take care to avoid chickens, unofficial city mascots who wander aimlessly across the streets and watch passers by from the sidewalks and rights-of-way. The chickens are said to arrived-no one knows how-sometime in the 1970s, and have adopted the old downtown as their own. Take the time to wander the side streets, however, and an altogether different picture of Oviedo emerges, one of gracious old homes, rolling grass lawns and moss-shrouded oak trees. Indeed, the Oviedo Historical Trail lists no fewer than 85 sites, including the home of pioneer postmaster George Browne, built in 1885, and the James Wilson House, built in 1938 on Lake Charm Circle. Another big draw for relocators are the Oviedo area's public schools, all of which received A's when the state Department of Education handed out grades last summer. SANFORD Located on the shores of Lake Monroe, Sanford once rivaled Orlando as the region's largest city. A major distribution center for vegetables and citrus, it was known as "The Celery Capital of the World." But agriculture is no longer king in Sanford, population 38,300. Today it's the Seminole County seat, making county government the leading employer. And, after years of stagnation, Sanford is also a city on the rise, thanks to a burgeoning airport-one of the fastest-growing in the country-and a downtown redevelopment project. Sanford's first permanent settlement was Camp Monroe, a fort on the south bank of Lake Monroe built in 1836 to protect settlers from Indians. A year later Capt. Charles Mellon was killed during an Indian attack, so the garrison was renamed in his honor. The community that grew up around the fort became known as Mellonville, and in 1845 was named the county seat of what was then Orange County. (Seminole County was carved out in 1913.) Because Lake Monroe provided easy access to the St. Johns River for shipping to other Florida markets, citrus growing developed as a major industry. In 1870, Gen. Henry S. Sanford, former minister to Belgium, purchased approximately 12,500 acres and laid out a town, which he named for himself, just west of Fort Mellon. Ten years later, ground was broken for the South Florida Railroad connecting Mellonville, Lake Mary, Longwood and Altamonte Springs with Jacksonville, the state's most important port city. It seemed that big things were in store in 1883, when Mellonville was absorbed by Sanford. However, late in the decade a fire destroyed numerous buildings, and residents were hit with a yellow-fever epidemic. Those disasters, on top of freezes that ravaged the citrus crops, caused Sanford's population to dip from 5,000 to 2,000. Vegetables, especially cold-resistant celery, later became the city's most important cash crop.
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