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Little Known Facts About Casselberry
Hibbard’s first job was as exclusive sales agent for a subdivision planned by Gordon Barnett. “Fern Park Estates - The Artists and Writers Colony of Florida.”
In June 1926, Hibbard and Barnett recorded the plat of Fern Park Estates, the Florida Land Boom collapsed. Within six weeks, there were uncontrollable depositor runs forcing 117 banks in Florida and Georgia to close their doors. Uninsured depositors lost millions, and several suicides followed the financial havoc. Then two hurricanes blew through back-to-back. On September 18, the second hurricane, known as the Big Blow, packing 125 mph winds, violated South Florida. It snapped houses like matchsticks, leaving 50,000 homeless and 300 others dead. . In 1933, Barnett created a conspiracy to overthrow Hibbard from his position as President of Winter Park Ferneries. The Board of Directors fired Hibbard and replaced him with a director, Ada Munsdorff. Munsdorff served for ten minutes before resigning from the Board entirely. A great influence on Casselberry's history was architect James Gamble Rogers II, who was a childhood friend of Mel's brother Daniel Leonard. Gamble designed the early cottages along the highway in Casselberry in 1932 in a French Provencial style. They garnered him national acclaim and made the little valley a picturesque spot in the otherwise boring ten-mile stretch between Winter Park and Sanford. Gamble later designed more buildings for Hibbard, including the Community Church in 1947 and Hibbard and Martha's home on South Triplet Lake, Brightwater. Until 1946, Hibbard Casselberry officially lived on Via Tuscany in Winter Park. However, he had a small cottage that he called El Rancho on Piney Ridge Pond where he spent much of his time while his wife Mel traveled.
In 1940, Casselberry was incorporated to be a Municipally Tax Free Town. At the time, there were only two other towns that were also tax-free but their names are not known. The citizens decided to have a “pay as you go” government. They would not go into debt or leave debt for their children to pay. There were no bonds, paving liens, or municipal taxes on real estate for thirty-five years, until the citizens voted to allow them in 1976.
Within a year of being incorporated, the Town of Casselberry almost disappeared. World War II took the “manpower”. However, the citizens decided that they would change courses and survive on “woman power”. Casselberry transformed into a manufacturing town, with the women sewing bandoleers and bomb parachutes. While this saved the town, it almost bankrupted Hibbard. There were times that the Town general fund was $1.62, and if there was no money in the coffers, the aldermen and mayor passed the hat for contributions. Despite their frugal ways, residents always had what they were willing to pay for. Casselberry had the first Credit
Union chartered by the State of Florida specifically to serve a municipality.
The Fern Park Post Office was established in January 1928. However, after the Town of Casselberry was incorporated, it took the Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens seventeen years of petition, letter writing, and politicing to get the US Postal Service to allow a location of the same name as the town. When it did, this changed the course of Hibbard's life. He built Casselberry's Post Office right next door to the Fern Park Post Office which was within the town limits of the Town of Casselberry. For a while, they were the closest two post offices in the United States – only 50 feet apart. Casselberry was once known as a notorious speed trap for motorists. The idea for strong speed controls first came about in the 1940s when a speeding driver hit and killed a child on the highway. The town erected a sign and wrote to the Orlando Sentinel saying that it would enforce its speed limits. As motorists continued speeding, the town used the revenue from tickets to put in the first street lights. In the 1940s and 1950s, Casselberry was known as the Azalea Town, for Hibbard’s business with Jules Colle, Casselberry’s Belgian Azaleas. Hibbard planned a 20-acre azalea garden where the new city center will be built.
Casselberry had been the winter training ground for world renowned trotting horses since 1926,
however, it fell on hard times during the land bust and the Depression. When Hibbard purchased it in 1946, he was in for more
of a surprise than he ever imagined. In 1951, he sold it to Stanley Kupiszewski and his wife, Johanna, a successful opera
singer, who brought Old World elegance to the lodge in every form. They hired artists to paint colorful murals on the lobby
walls and decorated the rooms with furniture that reflected an international style. The entertainment was no less, with impassioned
Flamenco dancers, Polynesian hula dancers, and a ballet troupe.
~ ~ ~ According to the 1960 US Census, Orlando had grown the most of any metropolitan area in the country in the previous decade. Out of all the small towns surrounding it, Casselberry was the fastest growing.
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