Wekiva River Basin in Orlando

Orlando is the site of the Wekiva River Basin, and outstanding waterway whose spring fed outflow feeds into the mighty St Johns River a few miles northwest of Sanford and Lake Monroe. The little Wekiva River has its origins at Lake Lawne on the outskirts of the Central Florida Fairgrounds on West Highway 50, 4 miles from downtown Orlando. These fairgrounds once housed the City of Orlando Prison Farm. Back in the nineteen forties and fifties, the city had its own jail and many prisoners would be sentenced to serve up to a year for knife fights or similar Saturday night indiscretions. If they were well behaved they were sent to the prison farm which had it's own dairy, garden and cattle operation.
After my maternal grandfather had a massive heart attack, my grandmother went to work as the secretary to the city judge. One of the perks for anyone who worked for the city at that time, or who was lucky enough to be connected to them, was to eat at the prison farm. It had the freshest, most delicious food , prepared by workers who could give all their time to making it. And no doubt the rich lands of the headwaters of the Wekiva allowed for the production of multiple crops to fuel the pantry.
After leaving Lake Lawne, the Little Wekiva flows into the 800 acre Lake Orlando whose shores are surrounded by the Orlando neighborhood of Rosemont. Named for the Rose family who once had a dairy farm here, this is the same Family who built Orwin Manor, Beverly Shores, Rose Isle and gave the land for Loch Haven Park. As the river flows through Lockhart it forms into a few unnamed ponds as it enters Seminole County. Skirting the western side of the city of Altamonte Springs, the river flows throughthe prpoperty that once belonged to my great grandfather, Leo Egerton Fosgate and Dr. P. Phillips. Subsequently , on over 300 acres, it became , under my uncle Chester, one of the largest citrus processing plants in the country. No doubt the river's proximity to the plant provided a source of fresh water just as previously it had aided in the site's use as a lumber mill.
Today the Little Wekiva crosses under State Road 436 just past this site and two miles further north it's joined by the run formed by Sanlando Springs. Sanlando had been the site of one of the Orlando areas favorite recreational swim spots for over fifty years before its conversion into a gated housing community in the early nineteen seventies.