City Growth and Change: Origins of Orlando’s Name, Streets, and Greenwood’s Many Entrances

Orlando’s origin story is not as straightforward as it may seem. Was the city named for the tragic hero of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, for a Seminole War veteran buried in a local graveyard, or for someone else altogether? Unfortunately, there is no consensus on how Orlando got its name. However, some mysteries are easier to solve than others. Clues to where Orlando’s street names originated can be found written in stone at Greenwood at the gravesites of city founders like Gore, Bumby, Anderson, Robinson, and Palmer. Likewise, the evolution of Greenwood Cemetery’s entrances can be pieced together to show how the cemetery mirrored Orlando’s growth and the changing needs of the community. 

From a small, rural village to a booming metropolis and tourist destination, Orlando has experienced significant growth since its early days in the nineteenth century. Along with this growth, the city and its municipal cemetery have changed and adapted to meet the needs of the community. As you tour Greenwood Cemetery, you'll find headstones bearing names that might seem familiar because they also mark many streets downtown and surrounding the cemetery. However, one thing you won’t find at Greenwood Cemetery is a headstone inscribed for the namesake of Orlando. 

Ask any Central Florida historian about the origins of Orlando’s name, and they’ll likely have quite a bit to say. Many cities in Florida were named for the nearest fort after the Second Seminole War, such as Fort Maitland, or for prominent settlers who established towns, like Sanford.¹ However, Orlando’s name originated elsewhere, but where exactly? That is the question.   

The city’s early yearning to be seen as a cultured haven for visitors among the orange groves and cattle ranches may be one explanation for the name’s origin. According to his descendants, Judge James Gamble Speer, a Central Florida pioneer, suggested the name in honor of the main character in William Shakespeare’s popular play, As You Like It.² Another version of the story connected to Speer suggests that Orlando was the name of “a man who once worked for him and whom he loved very much.”³ A more recent theory connecting Speer to the naming of Orlando proposes that Speer’s first wife, Isaphoenia Ellington, shared a common ancestor with Martha Washington, named Orlando Jones and this may have been Speer’s inspiration.⁴ 

Another very popular origin story suggests that a soldier named Orlando Reeves (or Reed, or even Jennings) was killed during the Second Seminole War and that the area where he was buried became known as “Orlando’s grave.”⁵ This story proved so popular that a marker inscribed with the tale was placed at Lake Eola by Orlando junior high students in 1939.⁶ Yet another alternative suggests that Orlando’s name originated with a wealthy landowner named Orlando Savage Rees.⁷ In any case, in 1857 the United States Post Office accepted Orlando as the official name for the area.⁸ However, it wasn’t until 1875 that a mere twenty-two eligible voters (white, property holding men) cast their ballots to incorporate the town, all one square mile of it, officially.⁹ Ten years later, the town of Orlando was incorporated for a second time as a city.¹⁰ 

Other naming conventions in Orlando puzzle residents and tourists alike, such as our rather interesting collection of street names. Some of Orlando’s streets were named for their location, such as the original southern boundary of the city, which became South Street. Many of our more curiously named streets carry the monikers of pioneering city founders. A number of these individuals are now buried in Greenwood Cemetery surrounded by the stretches of roads that bear their names. Gore Street was named for newspaper magnate Mahlon Gore; Bumby Avenue, for homesteader and businessman Joseph Bumby; Anderson Street, for Orange County Sheriff Julius Caesar Anderson, Robinson Street, for city surveyor Samuel Robinson, and Palmer Street, for former Mayor Willis Lucullus Palmer. However, these storied street names were almost erased from the map in 1912 when a push by the street committee of the City Council aimed to simplify and replace the “chaotic” naming system of Orlando’s streets with a numbered system designed to appeal to tourists unfamiliar with local history.¹¹ Opposition to the renaming centered on the importance of memorializing prominent figures in Orlando’s early history. Cassius Boone, another street-namesake now buried in Greenwood Cemetery, declared that the plan “would be little less than vandalism” and “would be unjust discrimination against the honored dead.”¹² In the end, the City Council abandoned plans to radically alter the street-naming system, leaving many of the original names intact.¹³ Several streets were combined, and a new system of naming was instituted that changed all streets running north to south to “avenues” rather than “streets” to aid navigation.¹⁴  

As the city grew, so too did its municipal cemetery, and this led to numerous changes over the years. The original plot of Greenwood Cemetery encompassed just twenty-six acres in the southeast corner of the current eighty-six-acre cemetery.¹⁵ This placed the main entrance in 1880 on Gore Street to the south of the cemetery, with those burial plots directly in front of the entrance more highly prized for their prominence. The rear northwest of the original cemetery, in what is now Section H, was reserved for the city’s first “pauper’s row” as well as the then-segregated section of the cemetery in a small strip of land divided by an unpaved drive shown on early maps.¹⁶ As Greenwood Cemetery expanded through the years, additional entrances were added. First, an east entrance with a “patented self-opening gate” was installed at Palmer Street and Hampton Avenue which was to remain accessible at all hours of the day and night.¹⁷ By the early 1920s, two more entrances were added; one to the west of the original Gore Street entrance and another to the west of the cemetery on Greenwood Street. It is possible that these wider entrances enabled new “horseless hearses” to navigate the cemetery as the original Gore Street entrance is too narrow for modern vehicles.¹⁸ The new entrance changed the flow of the cemetery and established Section K, a segregated section reserved for African American burials.¹⁹ In 1936, Greenwood Cemetery expanded when the city acquired thirty acres, part of what was the historically Black neighborhood of Jonestown, from Chesley Magruder to satisfy his tax debt.²⁰ After this final expansion, the main entrance was relocated to the north of the cemetery off South Street. This new entrance remained the main entrance for the cemetery until 1971 when the Expressway Authority demolished it, along with the few remaining blocks of homes between South Street and Anderson Street to build the highway.  

While Orlando continues to grow, Greenwood Cemetery will not be expanding since it is in the center of several thriving neighborhoods. Yet the City of Orlando recognizes the cultural, historical, and architectural significance of Greenwood Cemetery and the value of the stories held within its gates. Walking tours, interpretative signage, and historical markers are being added to the cemetery to encourage reflection on the city’s past, present, and future. Perhaps one day, through ongoing research into the lives of the people interred here, we may finally solve the enduring mystery behind the city’s name. 

1. The original name of Sanford was Mellonville, named for Charles Mellon, Second Seminole War soldier who died near there. “Mellonville was Thriving Town Before Sanford Came Along,” Orlando Sentinel, November 22, 1998, K2.

2. “Speer Descendants Share Story on Naming of Orlando,” Orlando Sentinel, April 5, 1998, K2.

3. Eve Bacon, Orlando: A Centennial History (Chuluota: Mickler House Publishers, 1975), I: 14.

4. Richard Lee Cronin, Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City (Orlando: Richard Lee Cronin, 2023), 309-326.

5. “Legendary Orlando Reeves was a remarkable man—or was he?” Orlando Sentinel, January 18, 1998, 146.

6. “Mystery of name tracked down long, winding trail,” Orlando Sentinel, January 28, 2001, 122.

7. “Mystery,” Orlando Sentinel.

8. “U.S., Appointments of U. S. Postmasters, 1832-1971,” database with images, Ancestry, entry for John R. Worthington, September 19, 1857, accessed April 22, 2024, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1932/images/30439_065406-00009 

9. James C. Clark, Orlando, Florida: A Brief History (Charleston: The History Press, 2013), 28.; “Historical Note,” Code of the City of Orlando, Florida, November 8, 2023, accessed January 16, 2024, https://library.municode.com/fl/orlando/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COORFL  

10. “Historical Note,” Code of the City of Orlando. 

11. “Numbers for Streets Recommended,” Orlando Evening Star, July 4, 1912, 3.

12. “Colonel Watkins, Judge Warlow, and Mayor Reynolds Favor New Street Naming System. Other Letters in Opposition,” Daily Reporter-Star (Orlando, Florida), July 11, 1912, 1. 

13. “Street Names Changed by City Council,” Daily Reporter-Star (Orlando, Florida), October 5, 1912, 1. 

14. Orlando City Council Minutes, October 4, 1912, City Minutes 1908-1913, Vol. 5, 387-390, City of Orlando Archives, Orlando, Florida.; “Numbers,” Orlando Evening Star.

15. “History of Greenwood Cemetery Told by Hon. Samuel A. Robinson – Pioneer,” Orlando Reporter-Star, September 14, 1915, 8.

16. Map of Greenwood Cemetery, City of Orlando.

17. “New Gate at Cemetery,” The Morning Sentinel (Orlando, Florida), January 15, 1915, 4.

18. “John F. Morgan Funeral Home Advertisement,” Orlando Evening Star, May 6, 1928, 11.

19. Bacon, Orlando, 302.

20. Magruder was a landlord for the thirty-acres of Jonestown which he sold to the City of Orlando. “Orlando Takes Grave Plots for Old Taxes: Magruder Property Near Greenwood Brings $21,000,” Orlando Sentinel, June 27, 1935, 1-2.