Orlando and the Fountain

The various other Lake Eola Fountain

We know the water fountain in the middle of Lake Eola — the main one in the middle of swan boats and functions as a town icon for Orlando. That water feature may be the Linton E. Allen Memorial Fountain, better-known whilst the Centennial Fountain. Nevertheless this post just isn't about this water feature, it is about its less well-known sibling, the Sperry Fountain. Very little attention is directed toward the Sperry Fountain, which was the main scenery at Lake Eola for a century.

E. F. Sperry had been one of Orlando’s pioneers. Initially from Connecticut, he moved to Orlando in 1885 after vacationing in the area. Within a-year of going here, he co-founded the South Florida Foundry and Machine Works. Providing steel works well with iron stairs, balconies, trains, and fencing, it grew into one of Orlando’s earliest companies. Mr. Sperry performed really for himself. He'd a home on East Pine Street and had residential property that included the southwest portion of Lake Eola.

As he later offered his fascination with the machine works, he stayed active in the neighborhood. Sperry served on the town commission, the park fee, the Orlando Citrus Exchange (as president), and ended up being a founding person in 1st Unitarian Church of Orlando when it started in 1912. A progressive man, Sperry had been the initial president of the Men’s Equal Suffrage League, which worked to aid woman gain the ability to vote.

His civic participation resulted in his election as mayor in 1914. Around this time he donated their Lake Eola land into the town. His home completed the shoreline for the city’s most famous park. (Pioneers Jake Summerlin and J. P. Mussellwhite contributed the rest of home towards city.) Sperry also provided the 00 when it comes to fountain that holds their title.

Sperry never ever finished his first mayoral term and all of a sudden passed away in 1916. Their history continued when their successor, Mayor James L. Giles, proceeded the battle for ladies to get voting liberties. Less than three-years after Sperry’s death, the City Council voted to amend the town charter permitting ladies to vote in Orlando.

• Orlando Sentinel, 9/8/1996
• From Florida Sand to “The City Beautiful”, E.H. Gore 1949
• Orlando, A Centennial Record, Eve Bacon 1975