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Before
Apopka was "The Indoor Foliage Capital of the World"
or even before it was "The Fern City," it was The Lodge.
From
about 7500 B.C. until about the 1st century A. D.
when they disappeared for reasons unknown, Indians were believed
to have lodged on the shores of Lake Apopka. Then for about
400 years the region appears to have been uninhabited.
When
the Spaniards arrived in Florida in the 16th century, the Acuera
tribe of the Timucua confederation was said to have lived in the
Apopka area, growing crops and trading. By 1730 these natives were
decimated by war and diseases brought by the Europeans and had also
disappeared.
Then
early in the 19th century, Indians again inhabited the area.
There was a Seminole village on Lake Apopka, or Ahapopka, as they spelled
and pronounced it. It remained an active village until the outbreak
of the Second Seminole War in the mid 1830s. Coacoochee (Wild Cat),
one of the most famous and influential War Chiefs, was born here and
ruled as Chief of about 200 Indians until this village was evacuated
and the natives sought refuge in the swampy areas around the St Johns.
The
Armed Occupation Act of 1842 brought white settlers to the
Apopka area. They received 160 acres if they would settle them.
These
Pioneers and those that followed the Civil War from states
to the north began converting the area into what it is today.
The
settlement grew, attracting developers and settlers because of
the climate and the agricultural opportunities and becoming an
important trading center in the 1850s. The Masons' were particularly
active. Orange Lodge #36 was organized in 1857, and The Lodge
building, still standing on its original site at Alabama Avenue and
Highway 441,
was completed in 1859.
It was
around this building that the town grew in the 1860s and 1870s
and ultimately became the Town of Apopka City incorporated in 1882.
Progress continued and today Apopka is still an important hub of
commerce. One of the fastest-growing cities in Orange County,
it is home base to more than 45,000 citizens in the greater Apopka area. |
