The City of Mount Dora’s W.T. Bland Public Library is home to the Mount Dora Archives, which recently completed a grant through the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources. This community education grant funded the processing and publishing of three new collections that highlight Mount Dora’s rich history from the late 1800s to current day. The Papers of Mabel Norris Reese, Mount Dora’s Chautauqua and Downtown by the Decades were developed to expand the city’s historical resources and highlight the people and places of note throughout Mount Dora. In addition to the three new collections, the nine other collections included in the digital archives were migrated from Bibliboard to a new standardized website, utilizing CONTENTdm. The twelve collections are accessible via www.mountdoraarchives.com.

Donnelly Street downtown looking north from Fourth Avenue, circa 1912. The building second from the right was Town Hall. From 1904 to 1922, the building seated 300 people and was used for more than town meetings. Mount Dora's first library was housed here and movies were shown to the public before the equipment was moved to the Princess Theater.  The building was severely damaged in the fire that occurred on February 2, 1922. The current location of the site portrayed in the picture is 426-430 N. Donnelly Street.

Submitted by: Erin Creel, W.T. Bland Public Library