Places
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The Senator
In January 2012, a fire resulting from a deliberate and thoughtless act of arson tragically destroyed the oldest existing tourist attraction in Central Florida. The cypress tree known as “The Senator” and often referred to simply as the “Big Tree” certainly predated Walt Disney World and other current attractions. The Senator was located in Big Tree Park in Seminole County’s Spring Hammock Preserve, a small preserve in Longwood between Sanford and Orlando. Its younger companion, Lady Liberty, still stands nearby. As the elder of the two, the Senator was thought to have been on the site for over 3,500 years.…
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Lewis Janitorial Supply
245 N Ronald Reagan Blvd, Longwood, FL 32750 The building was constructed in 1972. It serves as the home of Lewis Janitorial Supply.
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617 East Bay Avenue
Build in 1930
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Longwood Memorial Gardens Cemetery
The Longwood Cemetery has been used since at least 1880. The land was donated by its first homesteader, John Neill Searcy. Many people important in the development of Longwood, such as the Henck, Searcy, Entzminger, Hartely, Hooker, and Clouser families, are buried here. The oldest section if the northwesterly quadrant. The cemetery was souther half of the cemetery (below the path) was added in 1957, along with other improvements such as paving the pathway and adding a stone and chain fence around it. It was decided the southern section would have exclusively flat grave markers, so that it would be…
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840 State Road 434
Many people fly by on 434 and never notice this understated historic building with a shady tree-covered lot. It was built in 1926. It is currently the location of Rosso Coffee Bar, which opened on September 18, 2023, with owner Karen Blankenzee. She has been a local coffee beach roaster for years. Karen put a lot of work into replacing rotten wood, stucco, and drywall, painting, laying new concrete footing, and building a new handicap-compliant deck. It has been lovingly restored inside and is a lovely place to stop. It was previously La Kuma Coffee, which opened in 2017 and…
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Winwood Historical Marker Dedication
Uploaded by Longwood Historic Society on 2017-06-04.
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Stum’s Corner
Headed down Rangeline Road, you may never notice this stately old home. Located right where Church Avenue and Rangeline meet in Longwood, it was once one of the area’s preeminent landmarks. The house was built in 1930 by Ben and Clara Stum, who moved to Longwood in 1926. Back then Rangeline Road did not exist and since travel was difficult over the sandy roads it was considered separate from Longwood. The Stum family owned about 700 acres and this home sat at the place where the road took a 90-degree angle: east to Longwood and north toward Markham. It was…
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Slade Airport
The Slade Airport was named for local businessman Fredrick C. Slade and operated until the late 1960s. The runway cuts through what is now The Woodlands and Winsor Manor, near Rock Lake Middle School. Slade Road today is nearby, betraying the former owner of this swath of land that is now numerous different subdivisions. Slade’s former house is in the historic district. The airport was constructed in the 1940s and operated until 1968. At one time it was fairly busy, reportedly servicing 1,000 planes a year. It serviced mostly hobbyists and wealthy tourists. Fredrick Charles Slade moved to Longwood in…
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Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church
AKA — Longwood Corinth Baptist Church Around 1880 the town of Longwood was coming into its own. That year it was linked with Sanford and Orlando via by a narrow-gauge rail line that would later become the South Florida Railroad. For a town to prosper it needed plenty of labor, ideally cheap labor. So town founder Edward Henck began to recruit African American citizens to move into Longwood from around the Southeast. Eager for jobs in agriculture or one of the two railroads (the second, the Florida Midland Railroad, being constructed in 1885), many black families moved to Longwood in…
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Searcy House
This home was built in 1888 by John Neill Searcy. The Searcy homestead was a substantial estate on the west side of the town of Longwood; it stretched from the shores of West Lake to the north and southward to encompass all of Lake Searcy. The home stayed in the Searcy family for over a century. Searcy was originally from Tennessee and spent four years in the Confederate army during the Civil War. The Searcy family arrived in Longwood via steamer “Starlight” to Mellonville (Sanford) on March 23, 1873. At 31, John walked on foot from the wharf with intentions…