When the Railroad Reached Orlando in 1880

The railroad reached Orlando on October 1, 1880, when the South Florida Railroad opened its 23-mile line from Sanford to Orlando (UCF RICHES).

Work had started nine months earlier. Groundbreaking ceremonies for the South Florida Railroad were staged in Sanford on January 10, 1880, with Henry Shelton Sanford backing the project, and former President Ulysses S. Grant, who was visiting Florida, threw out the first ceremonial spadeful of dirt (UCF RICHES Church Street Station exhibit). The Sanford groundbreaking took place at the station site on Oak Avenue (UCF RICHES Sanford exhibit).

The day after the October 1 opening, Orlando got its party. A celebration train of flat cars fitted with wooden benches was so overloaded with passengers that it stalled several times on the way south, and a cannon mounted on the last car was fired at intervals. In Orlando the riders sat down to a barbecue, with several tables set for the African-American workers who had built the line (UCF RICHES).

The South Florida Railroad itself was incorporated in 1878 and began operations in 1880 with service between Sanford and Orlando (University of Florida Smathers Libraries). Orlando had been a town for five years by then: the Town of Orlando was incorporated on July 31, 1875, with a population of 85 (Orange County Government), and the City of Orlando history page counts 22 qualified voters among those 85 inhabitants (City of Orlando).

The South Florida Railroad ran south from Sanford on Lake Monroe (UCF RICHES Sanford exhibit) through Orlando, reaching Kissimmee in 1882 (UCF RICHES) and Port Tampa by the end of 1883 (University of Florida Smathers Libraries).

Sanford was the northern end for a reason. Its harbor could ship goods and people by steamboat to Jacksonville, and the first Orlando station, a small wooden building built in 1880, connected Orlando to it (UCF RICHES). Sanford sits on the west bank of Lake Monroe, which served as the head of navigation on the St. Johns River (UCF RICHES Sanford exhibit). Sanford had been incorporated on September 29, 1877, less than three years before the groundbreaking (UCF RICHES Sanford exhibit).

The line kept growing after Orlando. The South Florida Railroad was completed to Kissimmee in 1882 (UCF RICHES), and its Kissimmee depot, built by the company in 1883, still stands at 111 Dakin Avenue (UCF RICHES Kissimmee exhibit). Full service between Sanford and Tampa began in 1884 (University of Florida Smathers Libraries). Along the way, Edgewood began developing in the 1880s while the railroad from Orlando to Tampa was under construction (Orange County Government).

Ownership changed hands three times in a generation. In 1883 the Plant System of Henry B. Plant bought 60 percent of the South Florida Railroad stock (UCF RICHES), the Plant System bought the road outright in 1893, and in 1902 the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad acquired the whole Plant System (University of Florida Smathers Libraries). The sources word the 1883 deal differently: the UCF RICHES Church Street exhibit says Henry Plant acquired the line in 1883, and the University of Florida page says he acquired majority stock that year.

After the railroad arrived, Orlando grew from a town of around 200 people into a town of 1,666 people with 41 mercantile establishments by 1884 (UCF RICHES).

When the original station opened in 1880, the town had around 200 inhabitants and four buildings, according to the UCF RICHES depot history. Orlando was established as a city in 1885 (Orange County Government).

Citrus was the freight that mattered. The City of Orlando describes Orlando as the hub of the Florida citrus industry in the 19th century (City of Orlando), and the county itself had taken the name Orange County in 1845 for the citrus groves that thrived in the area (Orange County Government). The first Orlando railroad tickets were sold in a warehouse across the street from the depot owned by Joseph Bumby, one of the earliest Orlando businessmen and citrus growers (UCF RICHES).

More lines followed the South Florida Railroad into Orlando. By the time the brick depot went up in 1889, Orlando also had service from the Tavares, Orlando and Atlantic Railroad and the Orlando and Winter Park Railway, and Sanborn insurance maps of the period labeled the Church Street building a Union Station, meaning railroads likely shared it (UCF RICHES). Winter Park, a stop just north of Orlando, was incorporated in 1887 as a resort community catering to wintering tourists from the north (Orange County Government).

The 1880 wooden Orlando depot was torn down and replaced in 1889 by the brick building that still stands at 4 Depot Place and West Church Street (UCF RICHES).

Orange County Government lists 1889 as the year Church Street Station, originally called the Old Orlando Railroad Depot, was built to service the South Florida Railroad (Orange County Government). The UCF RICHES exhibit ties the rebuild to the growth of the town and a boom in the citrus industry of the region.

In 1926 passenger service moved to a new station one mile south, today the Orlando Health Station (Orange County Government). Church Street Station stayed on as a ticket outlet, was largely abandoned by the 1970s, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 (UCF RICHES).

Intercity trains now stop at the Orlando Health/Amtrak Station at 1400 Sligh Boulevard, the Atlantic Coast Line station that took over from the Church Street depot and opened on January 11, 1927 (UCF RICHES).

The Atlantic Coast Line built the Mission Revival station in 1926 at a cost of $500,000, with a stucco facade and towers flanking the entrance designed by architects A. M. Griffith and W. T. Hadlow (UCF RICHES Orlando Health/Amtrak exhibit). More than 6,000 visitors came to tour the Orlando station when it opened in January 1927 (Amtrak).

The Florida Department of Transportation owns the Sligh Boulevard station building, platform and parking lot, and Amtrak reports annual Orlando station ridership of 144,879 for FY 2025 (Amtrak Great American Stations). In 2014 the City of Orlando built a second platform there for the SunRail commuter train, and a $2.1 million restoration of the historic building was completed on June 29, 2015 (UCF RICHES).

Commuter trains returned to the 1880 site as well. SunRail began service in 2014 with its platform beside the original Church Street station (UCF RICHES), so riders on Church Street step off within sight of the brick depot that replaced the first Orlando station.

Two Orlando sites trace the railroad story that began in 1880: the 1889 Church Street depot with the SunRail platform beside it (UCF RICHES) and the 1927 station on Sligh Boulevard (UCF RICHES Orlando Health/Amtrak exhibit).

A practical route for following the railroad history: start at the Church Street depot at 4 Depot Place, travel about one mile south to the Orlando Health/Amtrak station on Sligh Boulevard, which SunRail has served since 2014, and compare the two depots that served Orlando before and after 1926 (UCF RICHES). The Kissimmee depot of 1883 at 111 Dakin Avenue shows the next station the company built south of Orlando (UCF RICHES).

Two details on the official and archival pages are out of date. The UCF RICHES Orlando station exhibit still quotes 2013 figures of 160,442 riders and four daily trains (UCF RICHES), while Amtrak now reports 144,879 Orlando riders for FY 2025 (Amtrak). Opening dates also vary by source: the UCF exhibit gives October 1, 1880 for the opening of the Sanford to Orlando line, while the University of Florida page says only that operations began in 1880, so 1880 is the safe year for Orlando rail service.