St. Cloud or Saint Cloud

History

thumb|left|St. Cloud Hotel c. 1922

thumb|left|St. Cloud Hotel, 2011

During the 1870s, Hamilton Disston of Philadelphia took an interest in developing the region while on fishing trips with Henry Shelton Sanford, founder of the city of Sanford. Disston contracted with the Florida Internal Improvement Fund, then in receivership, to pay $1 million to offset its Civil War and Reconstruction debt. In exchange, Disston was awarded half the land he drained from the state's swamps. He dug canals and, in 1886–1887, established St. Cloud sugarcane plantation, named after St. Cloud, Minnesota, although many longtime locals claim the town was named after Saint-Cloud, France.

Disston opened the Sugar Belt Railway to the South Florida Railroad in 1888 to carry his product to market. But the Panic of 1893 dropped land values, and the Great Freeze of 1894–1895 ruined the plantation. Disston returned to Philadelphia, where he died in 1896. The Sugar Belt Railway merged into the South Florida Railroad. An attempt to cultivate rice in the area failed, and for several years the land remained fallow. Then in 1909, the Seminole Land & Investment Company acquired as the site for a Grand Army of the Republic veterans' colony. St. Cloud was selected because of its "health, climate and productiveness of soil." It was first permanently settled in 1909 by William G. King, a real estate manager from Alachua County who had been given the responsibility "to plan, locate and develop a town."

On April 16, 1909, the Kissimmee Valley Gazette announced the "New Town of St. Cloud", a "Soldiers Colony" near Kissimmee. The newspaper called the Seminole Land and Investment Company's purchase "one of the most important real estate deals ever made in the State of Florida". It was reported that the company had searched all over Florida for the perfect site for a veterans' colony, particularly one suited for "health, climate, and productiveness of the soil". It is believed that many of the streets were named for states from which the Civil War veterans had served, but the street names were already assigned to the platted land before settlement occurred. Due to the large number of veterans buried in Mt. Peace Cemetery, the latter has been called "one of the largest non-battlefield Union cemeteries south of the Mason–Dixon line".

Early St. Cloud had a history as a Sundown Town with a plot of land outside the city reserved for black residents officially dubbed "Colored Quarter". This name is still active on official land records as the title of this section of land. Early newspaper records support the history of being a "Sundown Town" with firsthand accounts of local residents making attempts "to keep the colored folks in their own quarters outside the town".

On June 1, 1915, the Florida Legislature incorporated St. Cloud as a city. Its downtown features landmark buildings by the Orlando architectural firm Ryan & Roberts, a partnership consisting of two women. The buildings by Ryan and Roberts and others downtown are predominantly Spanish Revival.

St. Cloud has tried to separate itself from neighboring cities, and particularly the theme parks, by promoting an image of small-town life, and by attempting to make itself economically less dependent on Kissimmee. On March 6, 2006, St. Cloud introduced the CyberSpot program, becoming the first city in the United States to give residents free high-speed wireless Internet access, but the program ended in 2009.

Water tower cross controversy

In the late 1960s, the city of St. Cloud was gifted a Latin cross during the Christmas season. The twelve-foot tall cross, which was illuminated at night, stood atop the city’s water tower off U.S. Route 192 for nearly twenty years without issue.

By November 1986, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed its first lawsuit against the city of St. Cloud to have the cross removed. Four months later, in March 1987, private citizen Ronald Mendelson filed a similar lawsuit that the cross violated the U.S. Constitution’s mandate of separation of church and state. Mendelson, a Jewish resident who lived east of St. Cloud, decided to sue because of the city’s implicit endorsement of Christianity atop the water tower and the inconvenience Mendelson felt due to the "shadow of the cross".

On August 16, 1989, a U.S. District judge ruled in favor of Mendelson to have the Latin cross removed off the water tower. The judge, however, suggested in his ruling that the city replace the Latin cross with a Greek cross, distinguished for representing a plus-sign, to identify St. Cloud as a crossroad city. The ACLU quickly filed an additional lawsuit, claiming that the new Greek cross still violated the U.S. Constitution in an attempt to evade the judge's original ruling. Local support through the city council to reinstate the Latin cross on private property within St. Cloud was proposed.

The original Latin cross has since been moved atop a 60-foot tower on private property in nearby Intercession City, where it has remained since 1995.

Climate

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild winters. According to the Köppen climate classification, the City of St. Cloud has a humid subtropical climate zone (Cfa).

Demographics

Racial and ethnic composition

{| class="wikitable"

|+St. Cloud racial composition<br> (Hispanics excluded from racial categories)<br> (NH = Non-Hispanic)<br>

!Race

!Pop 2010

!Pop 2020

!% 2010

!% 2020

|-

|White (NH)

|21,851

|23,799

|62.11%

|40.36%

|-

|Black or African American (NH)

|1,633

|3,392

|4.64%

|5.75%

|-

|Native American or Alaska Native (NH)

|79

|100

|0.22%

|0.17%

|-

|Asian (NH)

|580

|1,111

|1.65%

|1.88%

|-

|Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian (NH)

|21

|51

|0.06%

|0.09%

|-

|Some other race (NH)

|143

|393

|0.41%

|0.67%

|-

|Two or more races/Multiracial (NH)

|596

|2,038

|1.69%

|3.46%

|-

|Hispanic or Latino (any race)

|10,280

|28,080

|29.22%

|47.62%

|-

|Total

|35,183

|58,964

|100.00%

|100.00%

|-

|}

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, St. Cloud had a population of 58,964. The median age was 37.5 years. 25.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 14.3% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 91.3 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 88.1 males age 18 and over.

There were 19,976 households in St. Cloud, of which 40.9% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 53.1% were married-couple households, 13.4% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 25.3% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 18.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

! Race !! Number !! Percent

|-

| White || 30,284 || 51.4%

|-

| Black or African American || 4,099 || 7.0%

|-

| American Indian and Alaska Native || 285 || 0.5%

|-

| Asian || 1,168 || 2.0%

|-

| Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander || 58 || 0.1%

|-

| Some other race || 8,987 || 15.2%

|-

| Two or more races || 14,083 || 23.9%

|-

| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) || 28,080 || 47.6%

|}

2010 census

As of the 2010 United States census, there were 35,183 people, 12,776 households, and 9,206 families residing in the city.

In 2010, the population of the Hispanic or Latino was 29.22%. Out of that percentage, 18.7% were Puerto Ricans who were by far the largest Hispanic or Latino group. The median age of St. Cloud's population was 36.8 years. 7.8% of the population was 65 or older. There were 12,565 households with 9,145 of them constituting families.

2000 census

As of the census Its hours are Monday-Saturday from 9am to 6pm. The branch offers many programs, such as LIVE storytimes, virtual bookclubs and over 50,000 volumes.

History of Veterans Memorial Library

The first form of a library in St. Cloud was in 1910, when the new woman's club set up a traveling library and a table at the train station with reading materials for locals. By 1911, there was a reading room that was purchased on Pennsylvania Avenue that the ladies of the town worked to make comfortable and stocked with things to read. Within the next couple of years the collection had outgrown the reading room and moved to the People's Bank and then City Hall. In 1915, the town began fundraising to build a proper building. These efforts were put on hold temporarily while war efforts were made a priority. When 1922 rolled around, it was decided that there was enough money to pay an architect to begin planning and building. The contract price was for $4,506.20. The building was extremely well-built and designed with many updated features, including electricity. On February 17, 1923, the new library was dedicated and named "Veteran's Memorial Library" which remains today.

From 1923 to 1968, Veteran's Memorial Library was operated and taken care of by the Woman's Club of St. Cloud. In 1968 it officially became part of the Osceola County Library System. From 1972 to 1974, the location of the library collection moved into a former bank on the corner of New York Avenue and 10th Street. At this point, the original building became a thrift store to benefit the Red Cross and other groups. In 2001, the building was purchased by The City of St. Cloud, and with the help of other organizations was planned to become a museum. The grand opening of The St. Cloud Heritage Museum (pictured below) was held on February 17, 2005.

While the St. Cloud Heritage Museum still proudly boasts the name "Veteran's Memorial Library", the branch location was moved to a former SunTrust bank building on 13th Street and Indiana Avenue in 1995, where it still operates today as part of the Osceola County Library System.

Sites of interest

thumb|St. Cloud Heritage Museum

  • Lakefront Park
  • Reptile World Serpentarium
  • St. Cloud Depot
  • St. Cloud Heritage Museum
  • Theatre in the Cloud
  • Wild Florida

Notable people

  • Adam the Woo, YouTube travel vlogger
  • Dave Cianelli, former National Football League (NFL) football player and former lobbyist
  • Brent Fullwood, former NFL football player
  • Tyler Gonzalez, racing driver
  • Jesse Neal, Professional Wrestler/Former TNA Superstar/USS Cole Veteran survivor
  • Sam Riggs, country music singer-songwriter
  • The Supervillains, five-piece ska band

Music

  • The album Saint Cloud (2020), by Waxahatchee gets its name from the city.
  • The Sixty-Sixty music video by the band A New Violet, was filmed and recorded in parts of St. Cloud, FL.

Play (and film) based in St. Cloud

  • Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), by Tennessee Williams

Films shot in St. Cloud

  • Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, starring Connie Mason and William Kerwin
  • Barracuda (1978), starring Wayne Crawford, Jason Evers, and William Kerwin
  • The Waterboy (1998), starring Adam Sandler, Henry Winkler, and Kathy Bates

References

Notes

  • St. Cloud official website