Little Econ park named for historic bridge
Orange County commissioners honored remains of an 18th-century bridge on 30 acres of forested conservation land by naming a future park on the site for the historic crossing rather than for the former owner who said the property’s “jaw-dropping” beauty kept him from developing it.
The board Tuesday unanimously chose the name “Timber Bridge Preserve,” a nod to a wooden structure over the Little Econ River that early settlers built in the mid-1700s using cypress timber harvested from the riverside. The original bridge pilings still stand near the river’s edge.
The name was one of three recommended by the Parks Advisory Board and the top choice of about 700 residents surveyed by Commissioner Emily Bonilla, whose east Orange district includes the property near the Orange-Seminole county line, a little more than a mile west of the UCF campus.
Bonilla said some people suggested naming the proposed park for former owner Wayne Harrod, who once planned to build homes there.
Harrod acquired the property in the early 1990s for $30,000 and later estimated he could build 27 homes on the 30 acres, 18 with a riverfront view that would each fetch “a million-plus.” In 2019, he said a private appraisal had pegged the value of the richly wooded acres at about $7 million.
But the developer said he made the mistake of falling
in love with the land.
“If you see it, you will understand. Everyone I have ever taken out there has fallen in love with it, head over heels,” Harrod said in a 2018 interview with the Orlando Sentinel, proposing the county buy and preserve it. “It’s probably the biggest treasure of land in a natural old Florida setting left in this area.”
He recalled the first time
he walked the property.
“As I walked through it my bottom jaw just dropped further and further and further,” Harrod said. “It is certainly one of ... if not the most beautiful, most irreplaceable treasures we have left in Orange County.”
He abandoned development plans, lowered his asking price and sold the land in 2020 to Orange County for $5 million.
The state of Florida paid $3 million, the county paid the rest, intending to create a passive park for hiking, picnics and perhaps kayaking.
The property also was the site of the first iron bridge built in Orange County, also over the river in 1890.
The land is sandwiched between neighborhoods on Rocking Horse Road to the west and Rouse Road to the east.
Descendants of Willis Rouse also lobbied the board to name the park for the patriarch of the pioneer family, who owns a cemetery nearby.
Charles Drake, a fifth-generation descendant, outlined the family’s contributions of land and service to the community over more than 150 years, including a donation of 110 acres from Minnie Rouse in 1968 that is now the site of the Edgewood Children’s Ranch for at-risk youths and their families.
Drake said soldiers from every war since the Civil War are buried at the Drawdy Rouse cemetery.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said naming the property for the historic feature was “the right thing.”
He noted Harrod was compensated “significantly compared to investment” for the land.
The mayor also thanked the Rouse family for contributions that improved the county.
“Perhaps there may be another opportunity at some point in the future to look at [naming] something else,” Demings said.