Leesburg Timeline of Significant Dates and Events



1845
March 3, 1845: after being a territory for 23 years, Florida became 27th state.

1843
July 27, 1843: Thomas Robertson and his son, John M. Robertson applied for land grants under the Armed Occupation Act of 1842.   (149 acres because 11 acres were in Lake Griffin and surrounding swampland)

1853
January 8, 1853: Sumter County (the 29th) created from Marion County; courthouse at Okahumpka, Adamsville, Sumterville.

1854
June 1, 1854:  Robertsons sold their land and moved to Moss Bluff and Whitney.  Thomas died December 27, 1858; John settled Whitney.

1857
December 5, 1857: Evander Lee came to Leesburg and bought property formerly owned by Robertson.

1860
June 8, 1860: Federal census -area  known as Palmyra & Lake Harris & Lake Griffin (P.O.).  About 16 households.  Steamboats from north bringing supplies, mail & people.

1860 -1870
During this time period Lee opened the first store at Main & 3rd & town was named.

1867
February 2, 1867: Lone Oak Cemetery had first known burial,  Mrs. Minerva Howell.  A pole fence protected the grave from "varmints."  Talk about churches/school.
November 10, 1867: The first boat docked at Leesburg from the Ocklawaha.


1868
Land designated from Lovard Lee for temporary county seat of Sumter County (Lots 8 & 9, betw 4th & 5th at Main).  And Leesburg had the county seat until October 10, 1881.
January 15, 1868: Masonic Lodge No. 58, F. & A. M., was chartered.  The Armory Building, one of our early bricks,  became its home, built 1885 at 4th & Main.

1871
May 15, 1871: A post office was established at Leesburg.

1874
September 18, 1874: the first female to be born in Leesburg, Annie Stivender (grandniece of Evander Lee).  Married William Tell Brinson.

1875
July 12, 1875: by a vote of 23-2, Leesburg (150 residents) was incorporated. 
July 17, 1875: Leesburg's first town election was held.  J. G. Wallace was elected mayor & Akin Stivender ,Marshall.
Dec. 11, 1875:  The first issue of the Sumter County Advance (eventually became the Daily Commercial) was published in Leesburg; was first newspaper published in what was to become Lake County.  Founder Charles Thomas died August 26, 1878.

1881–1885 - Churches
October 24, 1881: The First Baptist church was organized in Leesburg.
Dec, 29, 1882: The First Methodist Church was organized in Leesburg, with first sermon preached February 10, 1883.  October 12, 1924: was renamed Morrison Memorial Methodist Church.
January 5, 1884: The First Presbyterian Church was organized in Leesburg.
November 22, 1885: St. James Episcopal Church was organized in Leesburg.  Sept. 1, 1889: first service held in "Florida Gothic" style wooden structure. The Rev. Joseph E. Julian conducted the service.  August 15, 1947: partially destroyed by fire. The church was rebuilt in its original style, with slight enlargements, and the new building was ready for Easter, 1948.
Sept. 30, 1951: St. Paul's Catholic Church was opened in Leesburg. The city had
for several decades had an ordnance prohibiting a Catholic church, and the
parish held services in Fruitland Park.


1884
January 19, 1884: The first passenger train of the Florida Southern Railroad           Company pulled into Leesburg at 4 p.m.  Later crisscrossed w/rr tracks.
October 31, 1884: Leesburg Transfer Company was incorporated. They owned and operated a "horse railroad" line with two miles of track that connected depots with steamer arrival points.

1881 - 1890
1881: General Ulysses S. Grant, touring Florida, visited Leesburg.  Quote.  And that really started some building activity.
1885: First brick building, SW corner of 6th & Main.  The Gold/Entz Building to the west was next.
1886: 400 residents.  Leesburg's Main Street (business section) was hard- surfaced with clay, at the time the only city in Florida other than Jacksonville  with hard-surfaced streets.  All other streets were deep sand.

1887
April 9, 1887: Leesburg was platted in Sumter County.
May 27, 1887: Gov. Edward A. Perry signed the bill creating Lake County from portions of Orange and Sumter Counties. The new county became a legal entity 60 days later (July 27, 1887).
July 16, 1888: Final election to determine Lake's county seat.  Tavares  received 1162 votes to Leesburg's 927; Leesburg charged fraud, but to no avail.

1893
February 20, 1893: disastrous fire destroyed much of downtown Leesburg. The Commercial reported, "Nearly all of Leesburg's citizens turned out [to volunteer their help]."  We had a horse-drawn “fire engine”; wish I had a picture.

1894-1895
Major industries - watermelon and citrus.
June 4, 1894: G. W. Franklin, a Leesburg melon and produce buyer, shipped the first load of watermelons out of Florida.  June 4, 1926: It was announced that Leesburg had been formally designated as Florida's "Watermelon Capital" by the USDA, which had established a branch office in the city.  June 26, 1930: Leesburg's first Watermelon Festival.  July 2, 1943: The official close of Leesburg's watermelon season the highest melon prices in recorded history.

December 28, 1894: Temperatures plunged to as low as 12 degrees in Lake County, freezing all fruit and destroying most foliage.  A month of warm weather followed; and a second freeze on February 8, 1895 virtually destroyed all groves in the area; temperatures dropped as low as 16 degrees.

1906
Sept. 10, 1906: Opening of Citizens Bank, corner of Main and Fourth Streets, later the First National Bank of Leesburg.  1917 - chartered as a national bank, and renamed the First National Bank of Leesburg.  In 1936, First National Bank took over the former State Bank building on the southeast corner of Main and Sixth.  Over the years it grew, to become SunTrust Bank.
Sept. 22, 1906: The cashier of the newly-opened Citizens Bank was authorized to have a small outhouse built behind the bank.

1909
October 20, 1909: Leesburg Woman's Club was founded.  They built our building -  completed in 1922.  Over the years, the GFWC of Leesburg strongly supported the library during its fledgling years, and was instrumental in organizing the Auxiliary at Leesburg Regional Medical Center and many other worthy projects.

1918
May 4: 1918: Along with cities and towns throughout Florida, Leesburg was observing "Potato and Wheatless Week." Citizens were consuming potatoes instead of wheat, and wheat products were to be sent to US forces in France.
May 1918:The hum of an airship was heard over Leesburg by Miss Louise Moody, proprietor of the LakeView Hotel, and Mrs. Ellen Hunter.
October 4, 1919: And life went on.  Despite the fact that "the Great War in Europe had played havoc with the cutlery markets of the world," A. B. Lees Furniture and Hardware was able to offer the best articles of cutlery for sale.

1919
September 1, 1919: The City of Leesburg purchased the Light, Water, and Ice Plant of the Leesburg Ice Plant.

1920
January 9, 1920: A barnstorming ace landed at the Tomato Hill airstrip, where he took daring customers for rides in his airplane.

1922
June 6, 1922: A new city charter -  Leesburg changed its form of government to the city commission form which is still in use.

1923
February 25, 1923: Annie Oakley's beloved Irish setter "Dave" was killed by an
    auto while Miss Oakley and her husband Frank Butler were staying at the Lake View Hotel.  Dave was buried west of Leesburg.  She hunted with David Newell, Lake County's premier big game hunter, naturalist, and author.  November 1, 1941: Explorer, hunter, and fisherman David M. Newell became editor of Field & Stream magazine.  In April of 1975, he was featured on the magazine's cover.
July 4, 1923: The Palace Theatre opened in the Masonic Building.
August 6, 1923: The Grass Fibre Pulp and Paper Corporation began continuous
pulp production.  And on August 10, 1923: The Leesburg Commercial was printed on sawgrass paper from this product, the first complete newspaper ever printed on such paper.

1924
February 13, 1924: Leesburg's first police chief, James Lee Hux, was killed while raiding a still.  He was buried at Lone Oak Cemetery, along with our Leesburg pioneers..

1925
November - work begins on Leesburg harbor on Lake Harris, converts sawgrass marsh into 37-acre pleasure boat harbor. This harbor eventually became Venetian Gardens in the 1930s as WPA project.  November 19, 1926 story in Leesburg Commercial states harbor is completed,
January 7, 1936: first ornamentals were planted in Venetian Gardens for the WPA
March 21, 1937: first baseball game was played at the new Venetian Gardens Field.

1926
March 6, 1926: In a Masonic ceremony, the cornerstone for the new $63,000 city hall was laid.  Mayor W. A. MacKenzie  headed the city delegation.  October 9, 1926: new City Hall was formally dedicated.
August 25, 1926: Grand opening of the new, 5-story Leesburg State Bank building, housing one of Lake County's first elevators. The bank, with R. F. E. Cooke as president, was celebrating its 40th anniversary, having begun in 1886 as Morrison, Stapylton & Co.  Leesburg State Bank failed in the Depression.
December 1, 1926: The Leesburg Commercial became a morning daily newspaper, at that time the smallest in the U.S.  Daily publication ceased during the Depression, and the newspaper returned to weekly status that lasted until 1953.

1927
August 11, 1927: A meeting was held at the home of Mrs. F. L. Ezell to discuss plans for organizing a Leesburg chapter of the D.A.R.

1928
January 10, 1928:  Opening day of Leesburg's first National Fresh Water Bass Tournament.  Only nonresidents of the state were allowed to enter.
December 21, 1928: The Leesburg Ledger, a weekly newspaper, was first published.

1929
May 16, 1929: Venetian Gardens pool opened.

1930
January 4, 1930: The first full carload of ginned Spanish moss was sent out by the Spanish Moss Fibre Company.
April 24, 1930: The new Coca-Cola Bottling Plant opened on Main Street. Formerly on South 6th Street.
May 30, 1930: Leesburg first observed (National) Memorial Day, with services conducted by Spanish-American and Great War veterans.
October 19, 1930: The Atlantic Coast Line "Tamiami" train stopped in Leesburg for
the first time, at 12:55p.m.

1931
January 19, 1931: Edward H. Mote died.  He had established Leesburg's first waterworks, built the Mote Block and our historic house, the “Mote-Morris”, and served several terms as mayor.

1932
June 13, 1932: City Commissioners voted to keep Leesburg's lone traffic signal, located at Thirteenth and Main, on Caution (yellow) until September 1.

1933
March 4, 1933: By federal law, all Lake County banks were closed.  July 7, 1934: It was announced that nearly $100,000 was back in circulation since payments on frozen deposits in the Leesburg State Bank had begun.
April 28, 1933: Lake County's citrus crop was heavily damaged by a major hailstorm.
Sept. 4, 1933: On this day and the next, a hurricane brought some 17" of rain.
October 24, 1933: The 43rd reunion of Florida's Confederate veterans was being held in Leesburg.

1935
January 16, 1935: "Ma" Barker and her son Fred were killed in a shootout with FBI agents at the Barkers' rented lakefront house in Ocklawaha.  Frequent Leesburg shoppers, mother and son were well-known locally.

1939
August 18, 1939: At the close of the summer season at Camp Cloudmont, Jack Fahs received the gold trophy awarded to the Best All-Around Camper, while Jerry Holland took first place honors in tennis and the high jump.

1941
August 22,1941: Plans were underway for Leesburg's new Class A airport. Land had been donated by the Silver Lake Estate Corporation (410 acres) and by the heirs of Dr. Theodore Erck (40 acres) who had lived on Sunnyside.

1946
February 22, 1946:  Florida Telephone Corporation was seriously considering the conversion of the Leesburg exchange to dial service.

In 1842, Congress encouraged settlement in the peninsula of territorial Florida by establishing the Armed Occupation Act. The law granted a patent for 160 acres to any man who kept a gun and ammunition, built a house, cultivated five acres of this land and lived there for at least five years. Settlers moved in to take advantage of the generous land deal. The area contained abundant timber and suitable farm land, appealing attributes to the frontiersman. In 1845 Florida was granted statehood.

Contributed by GFAHS@aol.com

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