An introduction to the archives

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind those glass doors that separate the Winter Park History & Archives Collection from the rest of the library?

Well, this is the page to turn to in order to see what is currently in progress. There’s always something in the works!

Whether it’s accepting donations to the archives, adding new items to pre-existing collections, discovering new ways to better organize the holdings, arranging new collections, or answering reference questions, the archivist keeps very busy!

Newspapers

The Winter Park History & Archives Collection houses copies of many of Winter Park’s past and current newspapers. Unfortunately, newspapers become discolored, dry, and brittle over time. This extremely fragile state makes it impossible to provide public access to the older papers. However, there’s good news! We have recently taken steps to ensure that these important historical documents remain available to the public by converting them to new formats . . . thus making it possible to now offer them online! Check out The Winter Park Post (1915-1921) & Winter Park Topics (1934-1955) by visiting: Online Collections: Other: Newspapers.

Park Avenue

From the beginning, Park Avenue has played a key role in the development of Winter Park . . . and the Winter Park History & Archives Collection has numerous pictures of the street through the years. Look for a new web page on Park Avenue in February.

Ann Stone

An alumna of both Winter Park High School and Rollins College, this woman went on to teach in many Central Florida schools. Her collection features numerous family photographs.

Finding Aids

Finding Aids will be added to the website as they are completed. These are tools that will display information about each specific collection and will reveal what that collection contains, down to the folder level when possible. The first finding aid was completed only recently, and it describes the Wilhelmina “Billie” Greene Collection. You can access this finding aid by clicking here.

Write about your Winter Park memories here!

This is a space where you can tell other readers about your memories of Winter Park. Perhaps you grew up here and have a lot of experiences to share . . . or, perhaps a photograph on the web page jogged your memory about a person or a place here in town. Whatever it is, we'd love to read about it.