Footprints
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West Longwood
West Longwood was the name of a social entity of families living on the west side of Mr. Henck’s town of Longwood from the 1880s to sometime around 1910. West Longwood’s eastern boundary was considered the families living on the south side of Greenwood Lake (now West Lake), about where present-day Church Street makes a westerly bend out to Rangeline Road. It included all the families living between there and Interstate 4. This area started to develop around 1880. Families were probably attracted to the area because the soil was suitable for citrus, and they needed a larger plot of…
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Peter Demens
Mr. Demens arrived in Longwood in 1881 when he was 31 years old. He was born into Russian nobility in St. Petersburg, Russia, and his birth name was Pyotr Alekseyevich Dementyev. He served as an officer in the Imperial Guards. After his parents died, he inherited their estates at an early age but had little success with them and decided to emigrate to America. Upon arrival in Longwood, he had sufficient funds to purchase 80 acres for an orange grove and a one-third interest in a sawmill. According to his account, he worked diligently to clear the land for orange…
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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.…