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Orlando’s history dates back to 1838 and the height
of the Seminole Wars. The U.S. Army built Fort Gatlin south of the
present day Orlando City limits to protect settlers from attacks by
Indians. By 1840, a small community had grown up around the Fort.
It was known as Jernigan, named after the Jernigan family, who had
established the first permanent settlement in the area. Jernigan had
a post office, established May 30th,
Orlando weathered the Depression - mostly because of its agricultural
base - and went through another major transformation during World
War II. In 1940, the Army Air Corps set up a training field at the
Orlando Municipal Airport located just east of downtown. In 1941 the
Army established a second air base south of the town of Pine Castle.
Over ten thousand men and women were trained during the war and afterwards.
The second air base eventually became Pinecastle Air Force Base (later
still: McCoy A. F. B.) and was used as a Strategic Air Command unit
with B-52s that carried atomic bombs. From 1968 to 1998 Orlando was
also the home to one of the Navy’s three Naval Training Centers.
With the relocation to Orlando of the Glenn L. Martin Company in 1956,
Orlando started to develop a technological economy. The Martin Company,
which later became Martin Marietta and is today the space and defense
giant Lockheed Martin, built missiles in Orlando including the Pershing
and Patriot Missiles.
By 1960, the population of Orlando was over 60,000. Beyond its own
population, Orlando was in the process of becoming the center of a
metropolitan area that included Orange, Seminole and Osceola Counties.
And then Disney came. By 1998, Walt Disney World announced the attendance
of its 600,000,000th guest. Today, Orlando welcomes more visitors
each year than the population of California - over 43.3 million (2000
statistics), which makes Orlando the number one tourist destination
in the world.
Most of them stay in one of 100,000 hotel rooms and visit 7 major
theme parks. The current population of Orlando is approximately 185,000
and the Metro-Orlando population is over 1,500,000. Orlando continues
to be one of the fastest growing communities in Florida as well as
the United States. Not bad for a mosquito-ridden cowtown.
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