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Milestones in Oviedo/Florida’s History
– by Richard Adicks
| 1513 | Ponce de Leon names Florida and claims it for Spain. |
| 1562 | French establish a colony at the mouth of the St. Johns (which they call the River of May). |
| 1565 | Spanish vanquish the French and establish St. Augustine, 42 years before the Jamestown settlement and 55 years before the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock. |
| 1819 | Spain cedes Florida to the United States. |
| 1843 | Henry Washington surveys the Lake Jesup area. |
| 1845 | Florida becomes a state. |
| 1859 | Walter Gwynn buys land south of Lake Jesup from the state of Florida and later builds a home for his family on Lake Charm. |
| 1861 | Florida secedes and joins the Confederate States of America. |
| 1861-69 | During and after the War Between the States, settlers homestead or buy land in the “Lake Jesup community”. Among them are Narcissa Melissa Lawton and her family, and George and Patience Powell whose son, Lewis (alias “Paine”), has been executed for his role in the Lincoln assassination. |
| 1870 | Dr. Henry Foster, from Clifton Springs, New York, begins to come here in the winters, buys land, and plants orange groves. In the 1880’s, he develops Lake Charm as a resort and encourages friends to build winter homes here. |
| 1874 | J.H. and Laura Lee come from north Florida by wagon, settle first at Lake Jesup, and later at Lake Charm. |
| 1879 | Appointed postmaster of the new post office, Andrew Aulin, a Swedish immigrant, names it “Oviedo” after the city in northern Spain. |
| 1885 | Butler Boston, son of a slave and a white physician, moves here with his father, becomes a citrus grower, bricklayer and community leader. |
| 1886 | Theodore Mead settles in Oviedo, grows citrus and flowers, and a greenhouse full of plants that will later become the nucleus of Mead Gardens in Winter Park.Steen Nelson and his brother found Nelson and Company, an agricultural business which, in 1923, is to be incorporated by B.F. Wheeler, Sr. |
| 1895 | Feb. 7th to 10th – A disastrous freeze wipes out most citrus groves in Florida. |
| 1896 | Farmers begin to grow celery, which is to become a major crop of the area. |
| 1913 | Seminole County is peeled out of Orange County. |
| 1914 | Fire destroys most of downtown. |
| 1925 | Oviedo is chartered by Legislature. |
| 1968 | Florida Technological University (later UCF) opens south of Oviedo. |
| 1998 | The Oviedo Marketplace opens. |