Kismet

A Central Florida Ghost Town

Imagine being onboard a train today traveling to a magical Central Florida place, a distinctive location, where you anticipate an exciting fun-filled afternoon and evening in the company of family and friends. Have you pictured such a place yet?

Now, imagine your excitement intensifying as the train, powered by an old steam locomotive, begins to slow to a crawl and stops at a quaint country depot. As you prepare to disembark, you learn you will be boarding a paddlewheel ferry for a delightful journey across a shimmering sheet of water the locals at times call Golden Lake. On the far side of this lake yet another train awaits your arrival, and it is that train that will take you on a short journey to your ultimate destination.

The morning air has a slight chill to it, but any discomfort is easily offset by the sweet aroma of orange blossoms. It’s a beautiful day, but this imaginary journey is suddenly interrupted because you have a question. “Are we arriving at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, you ask?”

A good guess indeed, but my reply is No! “It’s Kismet! You have been imagining that you have just arrived at Kismet on New Year’s Day 1888, traveling here to attend a January 1, 1888, wedding of Flora Call and Elias Disney, the future parents in the year 1900 of Walt Disney.”

How They Met; It was Kismet!

A Lake County Ghost Town now, the Orange County 1880s town of Kismet, said Webb’s Historical of 1885, “is an illustration of what can be done in two years in Florida. In 1883 it was a howling wilderness; now there are a hotel, sawmill, 200 acres of orange groves, a post-office, and quite a population.”

The 1880s Plat of Kismet, Florida

Developed by Edward Higley and Solomon Haas of the Kismet Land & Improvement Company, the same firm that founded the nearby town of Higley (Prior Blog), Kismet was located on the east side of Lake Dorr. To visit the town, one needed to ride the St. John’s & Lake Eustis Railroad to the two 1880s railroad towns of Pittman or Ravenswood, sister cities bordering one another on the west side of Lake Dorr, “the very lake known by the developer of Pittman as Golden Lake.”

A church, said Webb’s Historical in 1885, was under construction, very likely the same Kismet church where Miss Flora, daughter of Charles & Henrietta (Gross) Call, married Elias Disney on 1 January 1888. Elias and Flora Disney settled on his homestead in Acron, a nearby town on Lake Acron, where the couple lived until 1895, when the infamous freeze of 1894-95 wiped out the livelihood of many a Central Florida citrus farmer.

The Disney family departed Florida after the freeze, and in 1900, Walt Disney was born in Chicago. (In later years, Walt Disney visited his relatives still living in the Kismet area. Meaning 'fate or destiny,' one wonders if the layout of the 19th century town of Kismet, where his parents had married, influenced Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom design in some small way).

Kismet in 1887 was described in the Orange County Gazetteer as 6 miles south of Altoona, the nearest express and telegraph office.

The Hotel Kismet, managed in 1887 by E. R. Abbott, eventually closed after the freeze of 1894-95, but the hotel itself was rescued. “Kismet’s fortunes took a turn for the worse 10 years after the town was created,” said Florida native Tom Raz in a 23 June 1994 Orlando Sentinel article about ghost towns of the Ocala National Forest. “The sawmill burned. The Kismet Hotel was moved. Then the killing freeze of 1894-95 destroyed much of the citrus groves and vegetable crops.” In 1908, Raz said, “the Federal Government established this land as a national forest.”

The Kismet Hotel of 1885 was dismantled after the Florida freezes of 1894-95, hauled piece by piece to nearby Eustis, Florida, and, on the corner of Grove and Magnolia, the building-puzzle was reassembled. The old Kismet Hotel re-opened in 1909 as the second grand hotel in Eustis, a 50-room lodge called the Grand View Hotel (below and post card photo at start of this blog).

The Grand View Hotel Eustis; the reincarnated Hotel Kismet

The grand old hotel that once provided overnight stays for Kismet visitors in 1885, however, was to be dismantled one final time. In 1955, the Grand View was taken down piece by piece again, this time to make room for The First State Bank & Trust Company. 

Demolition in 1955 of the Grand View Hotel, Eustis

I invite you to visit my website at www.CroninBooks.com to review my various books on Central Florida history or to find out when my next In-Person history presentation will be given. You can also add your name to the mailing list for my Free Blog. We do not share our mailing list nor do we include non-history related advertising on our blog posts.

My next blog, Wilson's Landing: It's Not Where They Think It Is! will be published in a few weeks.