General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Orlando was a cow town before Disney [View all]Warpy
(111,592 posts)Second time was 1955 when they decided to do a driving tour of the whole state on a prolonged vacation, my dad getting some down time between a good job and a better job. It was the then futuristic architecture in Miami Beach, the glass bottomed boats in Silver Spring (loved those), the water ski show at Cypress Gardens, and so forth. I remember Orlando as a small city, plenty of amenities but a little on the sleepy side. There was a nice park with a pond full of waterfowl. People had started moving in, so there was tract housing, but not the endless miles and miles of it, punctuated by tacky strip malls and chain restaurants. It wasn't really a cow town, either, it was a little too big for that. It was the central jumping off spot to other places in Florida, thanks to their foresight in building their first municipal airport in 1928 (looked that one up).
So there was a lot to it before Disney moved in. You wanted cow towns, you had to go elsewhere. There were plenty of ranches, cows, cowboys, and cow towns in central Florida. Disney located near Orlando precisely because it wasn't a cow town. I saw it before and after. It was a small tropical city with a medical center before. It was a sprawling suburban megalopolis after.
Even if Disney blew a corporate fit and closed tomorrow (they won't, they know Gov. Death Sentence is just a bad stink passing through), it wouldn't kill Orlando, although it would hurt.