The Live Oak Collective
Preserving All Our Roots For a Stronger Future
1. An Incomplete Story
Mount Dora loves its story. To date, seven books of Mount Dora history have been published. The downtown district and surrounding neighborhoods are on the National Register of Historic Places. The area roughly coincides with the city’s local historic preservation district, ensuring that all buildings within its area are carefully protected against changes which would alter their historic features.
Mount Dora also loves its trees, adding to its rootstock over a century of Arbor Day celebrations, gaining Tree City status and crafting ordinances to preserve and further its canopy. The city’s motto is Someplace Special, a handle which began in 1886 with the South Florida Chautauqua Sunday School Assembly. Since then, visitors have come to Mount Dora to bask in the city’s distinctive mix of Southern grace and New England charm.
But as in most communities, historic preservation has been incomplete and one-sided. Mount Dora’s African-American residents date back to the city’s earliest beginnings and worked in great harmony with their white neighbors, but in 1920 they were forcefully ejected from downtown in 1920 when their land was deemed more valuable selling to winter visitors. East Town — the swampy ground on the city’s near north side they were relegated to — was in turn evicted from the city’s official history, which for decades was the weekly Mount Dora Topic. Only two buildings in what is now called the Northeast Community are under historic preservation protection: Milner-Rosenwald School and the Witherspoon Lodge. (Both receive that protection only because they are on the National Register.)
Many buildings have been moved or torn down for new development; one African-American church which is now sits unused, Mount Zion Primitive Baptist, has been moved four times since it was built in 1896. Segregated African-American cemeteries have been allowed to languish and eventually vanish under forest litter.
While most Mount Dora histories say little about its African-American community, there is almost no mention of Pistolville, the poor white section of town where some of the city’s most colorful characters struggled to survive. (It has mostly vanished.) And there are other local populations — Hispanic, Asian, Native American — whose Mount Dora history exists nowhere but in the memories of those who have long passed through. If only headstones could talk.
Preserving historic landmarks like Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church or restoring abandoned cemeteries and relics of working life in Mount Dora (like the block factory at Tremain and Eighth, now a residence) not only adds to the unique historic character of the city. It also helps to preserve chapters in the area’s history which did not often appear in newspapers or public ceremonies yet still were vital hubs of daily life.
Faithfully restored historic buildings like the Donnelly House and Lakeside Inn attest to those whose place in history is most fortunate. Historic preservation ordinances ensure porches and front window are faithful to their original construction and intent. But are fortunate and accurate buildings the sole repositories of local history? Ned Kaufman suggests otherwise in Place, Race, and Story: Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation (2009):
If preservation were fundamentally a technical discipline, then it would be appropriate to gauge its success by technical measures. But it is not: it is a social practice, part history and part planning. Its ultimate goal is not fixing or saving old things but rather creating places where people can live well and connect to meaningful narratives about history, culture, and identity.
Interpreted this way, history is not only sites on a map but also places which are deeply lived. Landmarks are only tokens of place; schoolyards, parks and neighborhoods are just as important repositories of memory.
2. Re-Visioning Preservation
Preservation is badly in need of a re-visioning. “Though the criteria used by many landmark groups are excellent at divining value in mansions, museums, and civic buildings,” Kaufman writes,
… they do not do so well with tenements, warehouses, docks, roadside chapels, and canneries. Many such sites are not only undistinguished as architecture but have also been poorly built, altered, and generally used hard … they pose the problem of how to protect places which matter more for their stories than their material or aesthetic values.
Preserving history as a medium of cultural memory pays untold benefits to the community, both now and for generations to come. Yet for all of Mount Dora’s historic landmarks, few residents know much about the city’s history. What value is there to a place which has been defined by the narrowest range of stories? And without living vehicles of local memory — Mount Dora’s weekly newspaper, the Mount Dora Topic, was shuttered in 2009 after a century’s occupation close to the city’s pulse — it is not surprising that Mount Dora residents know less about their neighborhoods and neighbors than ever. Suburbanization strips away an area’s character long after the bulldozers have torn groves and old buildings down; cultural memory withers in the bustle of development.
The Florida Department of State Division of Historical Resources maintains a variety of programs to celebrate Florida heritage, including Florida Main Street (celebrating historic downtown districts), Florida Folklife and a number of trails laid down by the feet of varied historical groups — French, British, Spanish Colonial, Native Americans, African-Americans, the Civil War, Cubans, women — even historic golf courses. (One glaring omission is a Transplants and Tourists Trail, documenting the footsteps of those who came for the sunshine and and took a slice of Florida history home with them or stayed to make their new home with their legacy intact.) This reveals how complex and intermingled Florida’s various histories are.
As anyone who lives in the Sunshine State can see, all of these trails are threatened by the spread of development which is covering the land in concrete and asphalt. However well-intentioned preservation efforts are at the local, state and national level, developers wield enormous financial and political influence.
Worse, development is ramping up at the same time that funding for government-supported preservation withers. Since Rick Scott became the state’s governor, he and a Republican-led legislature has slashed funding for state historic preservation grants (down from $14 million to $1 million a year), and the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources has had to close all three of its regional offices. Funding for historic preservation programs at the national level hasn’t done much better, with the National Park Service (including the National Trust)’s budget cut 19% between 2008 and 2015.
There are too many ways that powerful individuals and interests outside the community use money and political clout to alter, change or destroy a town’s beloved spaces. Governments are increasingly limited by politicians, funding and boundaries from enforcing more than their shrinking preservation minimums.
Given how quickly changes are sweeping the area, government can no longer be the sole or even primary advocate for historic preservation. In more ways than ever, it is up to citizens and the private sector to advocate for the fullest account of Mount Dora’s history. This means pressing for change in public policy, creating stronger and more flexible tools for city-wide preservation efforts.
3. The Live Oak Collective
I’m proposing the formation of organization whose mission is to carry out such a re-visioning of historic preservation, centered in Mount Dora but welcoming other area efforts to preserve history in dramatically new ways.
The Live Oak Collective would be a 501-c3 charitable organization dedicated to funding the preservation of cultural resources in a manner that history can not only be more widely enjoyed but also in a way that the experience of it can deepen for generations to come.
It is the goal of the Live Oak Collective would be to celebrate, preserve and advocate the deep roots of story within our community. These roots certainly grow beyond the main historic district, and some cross city boundaries as well.
Here are some Live Oak-sponsored projects, all of which demonstrate how much more the community could benefit from a deeper embrace of history:
- Restoration and preservation projects which unite the community and celebrate the inclusion of lost parts of Mount Dora’s history, including: Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church, a 120-year-old African American church which has been unused and decaying since 2013, and the abandoned cemetery next to the Country Club of Mount Dora.
- Work to achieve historic preservation status for buildings outside Mount Dora’s historic preservation district, especially underserved African-American churches and other structures which have served Hispanic, Asian and Native American residents.
- Preservation of storyscapes which have had importance to the city’s history but aren’t necessarily invested in buildings — places where residents and visitors have partaken of Mount Dora life over the years. These include shopping areas both downtown and elsewhere (including the Triangle Shopping Center and Highland and Grandview business districts), the library and parks, churches and cemeteries, neighborhoods.
- Creation of a Remembered Spaces storyscape celebrating vanished landmarks: Vincent’s Five and Ten, the Dixie Drive-in, the Princess Theater, Thrill Hill drag racing lanes, places where the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses, the locations of great trees lost in the Storm of 1993.
- Celebration of green spaces as the book we cannot afford not to read, much less lose. Creation of a Historic Tree Trail. Sponsorship of cultural events in outdoor settings. Work with environmental groups to advocate green preservation.
- Development of a Living History project which: enables easy access and storage of local stories (similar to Story Corps); explores ways of sharing these resources in “live and real” settings (as in a History Tour); partners with local education to get young people involved in the process; identifies most-threatened historic and cultural resources and has a vehicle for making sure they aren’t lost.
- Recognizing the severe learning deficits inherent in digital culture, advocacy of print vehicles which allow for a rich re-introduction and preservation of reading culture. This might include publication of a free print journal, magazine or other media which allows for wide dissemination of historic projects, stories and celebrations. A great opportunity for journalists and libraries to partner.
- Mentoring individuals in the community in story-telling and giving them the means and tools to do it on a regular basis. (See StoryCorps.org.)
- Development of a digital arm of the Living History project which allows for much greater sharing of historic and cultural resources. One idea here is to digitize all the holdings of the Mount Dora Historical Society and place it in a sharable community database (perhaps linking to similar repositories in Eustis, Tavares, Tangerine and Lake and Orange County historical societies). A partnership with local and regional history centers.
- Digitization of print and microfilm archives of the Mount Dora Topic, Mount Dora’s newspaper of record from 1915 to 2006 when the paper ceased publication. After that work is completed, volunteers would help input metadata to make the database more searchable. The archive would be housed at the W.T. Bland Library and perhaps linking with similar efforts digitizing other weekly papers in the area which no longer publish (Eustis, Tavares). (This could be a partnership with the Friends of the Mount Dora Library.)
- Increase the archival capability at the W.T. Bland Library to include more current digital news and information about the city produced by government and private entities (Mount Dora Citizen, Mount Dora Buzz, Around Mount Dora).
- Development of a central website with access to digital resources and links to state-wide historical resources. Use the power of social media to attract interest and participation.
- Advocacy and community action to strengthen public preservation policy and public-private partnerships wherever they can form. As it isn’t likely that the city’s historic preservation district will be expanded (too many political hurdles), one immediate task would be to encourage homeowners outside the district to apply for historic markers, which would protect the house from alterations to its historic structure even after the house is sold.
Obviously the scope of these projects will require lengthy discussion and planning and wide participation by the community. It is hoped there will be involvement by city government, Mount Dora Community Trust, the Mount Dora Historical Society, the Friends of the Library and preservation partners at the regional, state and national level. It will take a lot of time and money to properly manage.
4. Tending The Forest of Story
The window of opportunity is closing fast with rampant development coming to the area. It’s estimated that Mount Dora will double in size and population with the building out of the Wekiva Parkway, the commercial district and surrounding residential development. Without wise management, it will cover the area like kudzu. (There are many examples throughout the area such as Clermont and The Villages.)
While preservation of historic buildings is crucial, in many ways that is just the beginning of the greater task of preserving cultural heritage. By providing space for the widest variety of narratives, we believe the city’s history will gain a breadth and depth which is truly special.
This isn’t intended to improve property values. (That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since historic homes often battle to survive the valuable land they sit on.) But the interior value — that which deeplywhat affects the character of this city — is immense. There is nothing more community-forming than a shared participation in preservation projects. Twice the white community came out to to paint Mount Zion Primitive Baptist along with black parishioners (in 1966 and 1974), and the restoration of the nearby Mount Carmel-Simpson cemetery in 2010 was an intense shared effort between citizens, the Mount Dora Community Trust, the Mount Dora Historical Society and local businesses.
Communities form around their living spaces. “Anyone who lives deeply in a place,” Kaufman writes, “is likely to become attached to it through … personal stories and sites. And if being attached to place, if being aware of and dedicated to inhabiting a particular place, can bolster citizenship in the twenty-first century, then cultivating a rich storyscape will be an enterprise of the greatest social value.”
But that value isn’t only local. Visitors may not take in more than the fascades of our unique history, but they cannot help but see the semblance of it in their own history, whether that be elsewhere in Central Florida, in Florida, the U.S.A. or worldwide. (Our paths our plural.) Mount Dora’s history is an instance of the general, and the effort we put into making ours come more fully alive inspires other history communities to do so. The bar is raised for all, the possibilities more attainable. And greater networking and partnering (especially with nearby towns like Tavares, Eustis, Tangerine and Sorrento) will make is possible for the region’s history to come more alive; imagine a history trail which coincides with the 275-mile Coast To Coast bike trail. Finally, it is a model of citizenship and group participation which can and can and should inspire like communities everywhere.
As a living entity, Live Oak has been here since the beginning, but until now it hasn’t been singled out as a collective representation of history. If preserving historic buildings has been the preservation tree, Live Oak Collective aims for the forest — what the poet Wallace Stevens called “the complicate, the amassing harmony.”
* * *
In their 1963 book Celtic Heritage, an exploration of preliterate storytelling culture, Alwyn and Brinsley Rees write that it was the storyteller’s responsibility to keep the old stories alive: preserving, in effect, the deep and ancient roots of Celtic culture. Beyond their entertainment value — and surely there was always that — stories had a mythic dimension essential to the tribe:
The old Welsh word for “story,” cyfarwyddyd, means “guidance,“ “direction,” “instruction,” “knowledge,” “skill,” or “prescription.” Its stem, arwydd, means “sign,” “symbol,” “manifestation” “omen,” or “miracle,” and derives from a root meaning “to see.” The storyteller (cyfarwdd) was originally a seer and a teacher who guided the souls of his hearers through the world of “mystery.”
The Live Oak Collective hopes to better preserve our local stories before they fade forever, taking with them an identity we will be much paler, flatter and inconsequential without.
By offering shade and shelter for those stories, we finally what’s special about living in this place. Those stories — variously engaged as a building, a park, a cemetery or a trail — are the tap-roots which are the best insurance against this little historic town from subsuming under the tide of change.
All of Central Florida may depend on what can be accomplished here.
Note: Live Oak Collective became a sub-trust of the Mount Dora Community Trust in December 2016, allowing for tax-deductible donations for these projects. Work on preservation of the historic Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church continues.
— David Cohea (liveoakcollect@gmail.com)
Contact me if you’d like a hard copy of this essay.
