Longstreet's book is now available on the Mount Dora Archives

Big Archives news!! R.J. Longstreet's The Story of Mount Dora is now digitized and can be found at www.mountdoraarchives.com! Longstreet wrote this history of Mount Dora at the urging of interested townspeople and the Mount Dora Historical Society published it in 1960. It remains one of the definitive accounts of our town's earliest days.

R.J. Longstreet was born on September 28, 1892 in Mount Dora, where he lived until age 9, and died on October 9, 1969 in New Smyrna Beach. His grandparents were among Mount Dora's first families: ‘Doc’ CR Gilbert and Margaret Close Gilbert of Ohio and Cornelius H. Longstreet and Esther Jane Satterly of New York. His parents were Herbert Cornelius Longstreet and Etta Lola Gilbert. Longstreet worked in Daytona Beach from 1919-1949 as a teacher and a writer. He graduated from Stetson University in 1912 before leaving for service in World War I. Longstreet was principal of Sea Breeze High School in Daytona Beach and has an elementary school named after him also in Daytona Beach. He is buried in Pine Forest Cemetery in Mount Dora, Florida.

The Mount Dora Archives is a joint effort of the Mount Dora Historical Society, The Mount Dora Library Association and the City of Mount Dora, with over 400 photographs, postcards and pamphlets published to-date.