Jessie Johnson Branch’s City Beautiful

Women in Orlando’s history have made an indelible mark on the city’s past, present, and future. One such woman was Jessie Branch, an early resident who created an enduring part of “The City Beautiful” when she coined the now-famous motto in 1908.  

Like many newcomers to Orlando in the early twentieth century, Jessie Johnson Branch had deep roots elsewhere. Jessica Foster Johnson was born on August 30, 1859, in Lost Creek, Virginia (which would two years later split to become part of West Virginia over the issue of slavery).¹ Her parents were George Poindexter Johnson and Martha Lucretia Foster.² Her father was a slave-holding Virginian who had freed his slaves but had not yet sold his property to make a new start in the frontier of Minnesota.³ During the Civil War, he joined the Union Army. This decision prompted his brother in Virginia to sell his remaining property and donate the proceeds to the Confederacy.⁴ In her diary, Johnson wrote about her family being members of the Methodist Episcopal Church near Lake City, Minnesota. One day, a “fire and brimstone preacher” pronounced that anyone who had ever owned a slave would be doomed for all eternity. Her father stood up and left the church, and the family soon found themselves Presbyterians.⁵  

In 1881, Jessie married William Branch, an apothecary in Olmstead, Minnesota.⁶ Soon after their marriage, the spirit of manifest destiny called the couple to migrate further West to the Dakota Territory where they lived through “storms, bitter cold, and high winds and snow” in the prairie of Parker, South Dakota.⁷ In their new frontier home, they had three children, William Jr. in 1884, Payson in 1886, and Roberta in 1892.⁸ After twenty-one years in South Dakota, Jessie and William decided that it was time to retire, so they and their three children pondered what place might provide a kinder climate in which to grow old. After a year of pouring over travel brochures, they settled on Orlando, Florida, which promised “good roads, pure water, rich land, and no insects.”⁹ As they boarded a train bound for Florida in late 1903, Jessie brought along a 10-cent composition book to begin a diary of their move.¹⁰ As the family stepped off the train on November 3rd, she was overwhelmed with the beauty of her new home, declaring that she could not “but marvel” at the green and flowering paradise of Orlando.¹¹ The Branch family staked out a piece of land on Orange Avenue and built a two-story home, complete with a fruit orchard and plenty of Jessie’s favorite flowers.¹² William Sr. opened a stationery and music store that went by many names, including W.S. Branch’s Book and Music Store, Branch’s Book and Music Store, The Arcade Book and Music Store, and the O’Neal-Branch Company. Johnson worked in the store alongside Branch and joined the Sorosis Club in 1904. She wrote often in her diary about her concerns for her children and the goings on in town.¹³  

The City of Orlando, while considerably smaller than it is today, faced similar challenges to other growing cities in the early twentieth century, including beautification. In 1908, another transplant from South Dakota, Mayor William Henry Jewell, spearheaded a beautification campaign in the city that included soliciting ideas to replace the current city motto. At that time, Orlando was known as “The Phenomenal City.” Many mottos were suggested, including “The Queen City,” the “Magic City,” “The Picturesque City,” and “The Health City.”¹⁴ However, Jessie suggested “The City Beautiful,” and the name was a hit. The Branch’s began adding the new city motto to postcards and stationery sold in their store.¹⁵ 

Jessie’s family tree grew when William Jr. married Mildred Reed in 1916 and soon had three children: Dorothy, Margery, and Robert.¹⁶ In 1917, Jessie and William’s daughter Roberta married Braxton “Bonny” Beacham Jr., son of former Mayor Braxton Beacham, who preceded Mayor Jewell.¹⁷ Braxton Beacham Sr. was the owner of the Beacham Theater. Sadly, Jessie’s husband William died in 1921, and later, in 1923, their youngest son Payson died of pellagra, a disease caused by a niacin deficiency.¹⁸ Jessie’s last dairy entry included a heart wrenching tribute to her youngest child.¹⁹ She lived a long life, continuing to work in the stationery store she opened with her husband as long as she could.²⁰ Her small figure was in sharp contrast to her feisty character and when in 1948 on her 89th birthday, just months before her death, an Orlando Sentinel reporter interviewed her to celebrate; she characteristically told him “Go away, I’m working.”²¹  

Jessie Johnson Branch died on January 15, 1948, and was buried with her husband and son in section L of Greenwood Cemetery, joined later by many other descendants who proudly made Orlando their home. Her legacy, through the name she bestowed on Orlando, will live on in “The City Beautiful.” 

1. Carey Hand Funeral Home, “16993” (1948), Funeral Register Volume 33: Carey Hand Funeral Home records, November 10, 1948 to January 23, 1951, 93, accessed November 11, 2023,  https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-ch-register-vol33/93 

2. Carey Hand Funeral Home, “16993.”

3. Margery Branch Merrill, Jessie’s Tree (New Smyrna Beach: Luthers, 1995), 21.

4. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 44.

5. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 21. 

6. “Minnesota, County Marriages, 1860-1949,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for William S Branch and Jessie F Johnson, accessed November 11, 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2M5-4HJF 

7. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 16-17. 

8. “United States Census, 1900,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for William S Branch and Jessie J Branch, accessed November 11, 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MMRX-CJW 

9. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 16. ; Dann, R. Edgar, “Something about Orlando, Florida” (1900), Text Materials of Central Florida, 135, accessed November 11, 2023, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-texts/135 ; Joy Wallace Dickinson, Orlando, City of Dreams (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2003), 83.

10. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 13.

11. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 16.

12. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 32.

13. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 29-32.

14. Paul Lewis, “Orlando’s “Beautiful” Heritage: The City Beautiful Movement and Its Impact on Orlando,” City of Orlando, 9, accessed November 10, 2023, http://www.cityoforlando.net/greenworks/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2014/03/Orlandos-Beautiful-Heritage.pdf  

15. Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 48-9. 

16. “Branch-Reed Wedding,” The Jeffersonian Gazette (Lawrence, Kansas), September 13, 1916, 8.; “United States Census, 1930,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for William S Branch and Mildred Branch, accessed November 11, 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SY2B-ST2  

17. “Florida Marriages, 1837-1974,” database with images, FamilySearch, Roberta Louise Branch in entry for Braxton Beacham, accessed November 11, 2023, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FWWY-JNR 

18. “Florida Deaths, 1877-1939,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for William S. Branch, Sr., accessed November 11, 2023, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FP37-88B; Carey Hand Funeral Home, “Branch, Payson” (1923), Carey Hand Undertaker's Memoranda 1923, 240, accessed November 11, 2023, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cfm-ch-memoranda-1923/240  

19.  Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 50.

20. “Mrs. Branch Observes 89^th Birthday,” Orlando Evening Star, August 30, 1948, 3; Merrill, Jessie’s Tree, 101.

21. “Mrs. Branch Observes 89^th Birthday,” Orlando Evening Star, August 30, 1948, 3.