Thursday, September 29, 2011

Winter Park Research Paper

For my research paper on Winter park, I have decided to study an individual who had a lot to do with Winter Park becoming the successful town and community it is today. That individual is named Oliver Everett Chapman and was born in 1851 and died in 1936. Oliver was one of the co-founders of Winter Park itself.

When I started researching individuals that played a major role in the creation and maintenance of winter Park, Oliver stood out the most, being the founder of the town. I also found him to be quite interesting as a human being. He grew up in Massachusetts, which stood out to me as well because I am from Connecticut, so very close to where he grew up. Oliver first moved to Florida because of an illness in his family. While living in Florida, Chapmen met Loring A. Chase, who would become one of his very close friends and major contributor to the founding of Winter Park. While living in Florida, the two friends decided to start a real estate company (Winter Park land Company) which then led to the idea of starting a new town called Winter Park, based on the fact that Chase believed it was the warm weather that helped his health and that the area in which he wanted to develop would be an ideal winter community, hence where the name Winter Park originated.

Overall, Oliver’s story sounded interesting and I am looking forward to learning more in detail of how Winter Park came to be.

1 comment:

  1. Oliver Chapman is a great person to explore for your paper. There is a great deal of information in the college archive on Chapman and there is also information available through online resources such as Central Florida Memory. Your biggest task will be to find some unique way to talk about Chapman's life and career.

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