St. Cloud, Florida

St. Cloud is a city of about 45,000 people in Osceola County in central Florida. St. Cloud is southeast of Kissimmee, and both are just south of Orlando. Pictured is the St. Cloud City Hall.

The historical marker in the photo discusses the Sugar Belt Railway. Florida was sparsely populated until after the Civil War. In the 1870s Philadelphia industrialist Hamilton Disston became interested in developing central Florida while on fishing trips with his friend Henry Sanford, founder of the nearby city of Sanford. In 1881 Mr. Disston purchased four million acres in central Florida and, among other projects, established a sugar plantation in what is now St. Cloud. He built the Sugar Belt Railway between his sugar plantation and Kissimmee.

The sugar planation failed but in 1909 the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans from the Civil War, was looking to establish a retirement community for its members. It purchased 35,000 acres from the defunct Disston sugar plantation and established St. Cloud, known as "The Soldier City."

St. Cloud is on the southern end of East Lake Tohopekaliga which is about 12,000 acres and has a maximum depth of 18 feet. It is a popular lake for boating and fishing. The photo below shows sunset from Crabby Bill's Restaurant on the southern shore of East Lake Toho:

St. Cloud was so named in the 1880s after St. Cloud, Minnesota, which has been established a few decades earlier, and which itself was named for Saint-Cloud, France, near Paris.