Ghosts, Legends & Lore from Florida: Orlando and Orange County

Orlando is more than theme parks. Its deeper stories run through Seminole War forts, Eatonville porches, Parramore streets, vanished Black communities, railroad depots, roadside attractions, old theaters, cemeteries, springs, lakes, and buildings that carried their legends into the present. In this volume, Jonah Bell follows twenty-eight Orange County histories and traditions, from the disputed naming of Orlando and the racial terror of Ocoee in 1920 to the Annie Russell Theatre’s favorite-seat story, the Waterhouse Residence after dark, Winter Garden ghost circulation, and Gatorland’s pre-Disney roadside history. The book separates documented history from rumor without draining either of meaning. Institutional archives, public records, preservation files, scholarship, and clearly attributed oral traditions reveal how communities remember what survives, what was removed, and what may still seem to linger.