Orlando’s ‘Pine Castle’ left a lasting mark
Florida pioneer Will Wallace Harney built elaborate cabin 100 years before Disney
When one thinks of Orlando, there is a good chance a majestic castle might come to mind.
And while Walt Disney’s castle is certainly the most notable in Orlando today, it was not the first built in the middle of Florida swampland by someone who saw the potential in taming the wilderness to build their kingdom.
In 1869, 100 years before Disney made his plans known, a Florida pioneer named Will Wallace Harney traveled by covered wagon with his wife, Mary Randolph Harney, 1,000 miles to Orlando from Louisville, Kentucky.
Harney, like Disney, got the land dirt cheap, but Harney wins bragging rights for getting a better deal — he got it for free by homesteading.
At that time, the only catch with homesteading land from the government was pioneers had to live on it and improve it.
The improvements Harney made included building Orlando’s first landmark castle.
However, unlike Disney’s Bavarian-inspired castle, Harney’s castle, built in 1873, was not nearly as grand.
As a pioneer, Harney relied on the resources of the surrounding land and built his castle from the native pine trees growing in Central Florida.
While it was not painted, varnished or adorned with decorations, the structure did get a lot of attention and left a lasting impression on the region.
“It was such an odd-looking place that when people would go by it they would say, ‘there’s the pine castle,’ ” says William Morgan, chairman of Pine Castle Pioneer Days.
Unlike other cabins of that era which were built with
“It was such an odd-looking place that when people would go by it they would say, ‘there’s the pine castle.’ ”
— William Morgan, chairman of Pine Castle Pioneer Days
the timbers laid horizontally, Harney laid them vertically, giving his cabin an illusion of height.
It was much larger than the typical cabin as well, with a central room that was octagonal in shape, sandwiched between a wing on the left and one on the right.
Additionally, it had turrets, lookouts and a long porch across the front that faced Lake Conway.
Harney’s pine castle was so distinct that the surrounding region now known as Edgewood, Belle Isle, Conway, Pine Castle and a portion of south Orange County, was named for it.
This is how the historic Orlando community of Pine Castle came to be.
Dispatches from the frontier
When Harney came to Central Florida shortly after the Civil War, he had already made a name for himself as a writer.
“Most of his writing appeared in serialized form in newspapers across the country,” says Morgan, who describes Harney’s writing style as a blend between Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe.
Harney continued working as an author in Central Florida, writing dispatches in a humorous and folksy tone about life in the frontier using the dateline, “Pine Castle.”
“Those writings gave us our first real glimpse of what it was like to live in Central Florida,” says Morgan, “People across the country just ate it up.”
Turns out Harney was not especially skilled at farming. Fortunately for him, by the time he gained the title for the land from the government, his fame as a writer had risen, and he did not need to rely on farming to make a living.
Instead, he decided to capitalize on his 160 acres of land by subdividing it and selling it to settlers moving to the region.
By this time, his writings about the exotic wildlife and abundance of fishing and hunting next to Lake Conway had been sparking the imaginations of other adventurers.
It was great marketing to convince them to visit — and possibly relocate — buying his plots in the land of alligators, mosquitoes and hurricanes, explains Morgan.
The extension of the South Florida Railroad from Orlando to Tampa in 1881 gave settlers a way to travel to the middle of Florida.
Now nearly 150 years later, the name of the community of Pine Castle still remains. Unfortunately, Harney’s actual pine castle does not.
“Pine burns,” says
Morgan, succinctly.
The castle caught fire in 1894 while Harney was away working at his office in Kissimmee.
The structure was lost, “Except for the turrets that are said to have remained standing up until the early 1900s,” says Morgan.
Now a historical marker marks the spot on Matchett Road where Harney’s castle once stood adjacent to Lake Conway.
Pine Castle Pioneer Days is an annual family-oriented, community-sponsored/planned event promoting the living history of the Pine Castle area through demonstrations and other educational opportunities. Next year’s festivities will be Feb. 26-27. Find more information at pinecastlepioneerdays.org.