Winter Park in the 1960s - Paperback

by Gary White (Author), Nick White (Author)

Winter Park, a vibrant city in Central Florida reminiscent of a New England village, witnessed the following exciting changes in the 1960s: the building of a new city hall, the establishment of the Sidewalk Arts Festival, and construction of shopping centers and apartment buildings. Beloved businesses, such as the Yum Yum Shoppe and Café del Prado, thrived on the downtown strip of Park Avenue. The Langford Hotel welcomed glamorous guests and hosted beauty pageants. Winter Park promoted children's activities, from Easter egg hunts in Central Park to citywide athletic competitions, while racial integration emerged in its recreational facilities. The city's popular mayor, Ed Gurney, rose to become a US representative and then a US senator.

Author Biography

Nick White worked in Winter Park from 1961 to 1966 as a newspaper reporter and photographer, documenting occurrences both public and private, from city commission meetings to children's visits with Santa Claus. White carried his Rolleiflex camera throughout the city, recording black-and-white images that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel's Winter Park edition. Following White's death in 2022, his son, Gary White, himself a journalist in Lakeland, perused thousands of his father's remaining negatives and examined newspaper archives and historical sources to compile captions for this book.