Did You Know... St. Cloud

Did you know the City of St. Cloud is known as the "Soldier City"? Incorporated in 1911, the City of St. Cloud was actually founded in 1909. Named for a suburb of Paris, Hamilton Disston established a sugar factory at the St. Cloud Plantation at East Lake Tohopekaliga in the late 1800s. A community known as "Sunny Side," mostly composed of Disston employees, developed nearby and eventually became the present-day City of St. Cloud. In the early 1900s, New York capitalist Raymond Moore and Captain Jeffries, head of the Zephyrhills Colony Company, came to Florida seeking to establish a colony for Grand Army of the Republic veterans. In April 1909, the Kissimmee Valley Gazette reported that the officers of the company "had searched all over Florida for the perfect site for a veterans' colony, particularly one especially suited for 'health, climate and productiveness of the soil.'" Union veterans of the Civil War purchased five-acre lots for $50. Before its official incorporation, St. Cloud was governed by the veterans' association and has since been dubbed the "Soldier City." Photo courtesy of the State Library and Archives of Florida. Reprinted from Quality Cities September/October 2008.