Apopka-Vineland Road is the name of several roads in

Orange County, Florida Orange County is located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,429,908, making it Florida's fifth most populous county. The county seat is Orlando. Orange County is the central county ...

, roughly forming a line from

Apopka Apopka is a city in Orange County, Florida. The city's population was 55,000 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford Metropolitan Statistical Area. ''Apopka'' comes from Seminole word ''Ahapopka'' for "Potato eating ...

south to

Vineland ''Vineland'' is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection.Knabb 2002 Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived the sixties in their youth, th ...

. As of now, there is one gap, from Old Winter Garden Road to State Road 50 (Colonial Drive), which contains a residential neighborhood and State Road 408, the tolled East-West Expressway. The majority of the route is designated, but not always signed, as County Road 435 (CR 435). A small segment of CR 435, from SR 50 to SR 438, runs along the parallel Hiawassee Road just to the east.

Route description

The whole southern section from

to Old Winter Garden Road is four lanes wide (the last section, from

Florida's Turnpike Florida's Turnpike, designated as unsigned State Road 91 (SR 91), is a toll road in the U.S. state of Florida, maintained by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE). Spanning approximately along a northwest–southeast axis, the turnpike is in two s ...

to Old Winter Garden Road, was completed in 2005). The north section from State Road 50 to A.D. Mims Road in Clarcona is newly constructed four lanes, but from there to Apopka the road remains two lanes. North of McCormick Road the name changes to Clarcona Road. This section connects to the Apopka Expressway State Road 414 via Keene Road. In the city of Apopka, the name changes again to Park Avenue.

History

Before 1926, there was no road named Apopka-Vineland Road. The only part of the south half to exist was the diagonal section from Old Winter Garden Road south to Gotha Road, part of the old

dirt road A dirt road or track is a type of unpaved road not paved with asphalt, concrete, brick, or stone; made from the native material of the land surface through which it passes, known to highway engineers as subgrade material. Dirt roads are suitable ...

from

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

. The north section (north of SR 438) was all there, but was known as Clarcona Road, as it passed through Clarcona. On February 9, 1926, the

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

Board of County Commissioners A county commission (or a board of county commissioners) is a group of elected officials (county commissioners) collectively charged with administering the county government in some states of the United States; such commissions usually comprise ...

approved a $7 million

bond issue In finance, a bond is a type of security under which the issuer (debtor) owes the holder (creditor) a debt, and is obliged – depending on the terms – to repay the principal (i.e. amount borrowed) of the bond at the maturity date as well as i ...

to build a system of paved roads, supplementing the limited network already existing; the voters approved it 993 to 143 on March 23, 1926. Included in this system was road #24, "Apopka-Vineland to County Line". This road was planned to use what is now Apopka-Vineland Road and State Road 535 (Apopka-Vineland Road) from the existing brick road on Park Avenue in Apopka south to the Osceola County line. It would have used short sections of SR 438 and Old Winter Garden Road, connecting between the two using Good Homes Road (which was at the time a dirt road, and is now paved). Thus the original planned Apopka-Vineland Road all exists, but is not all called that. Not all the roads in the bond issue were built; this included the center section of Apopka-Vineland Road. Over the years, plans were made to fill the gap; the most recent continued straight from Old Winter Garden Road across SR 50, north across SR 438 about ¼ mile east of the existing road, and curving back to join the road north of SR 438. This has been built between SR 50 and SR 438, and is being built north of SR 438, but

housing subdivision Subdivisions are the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known as a subdivision. Subdivisions may be simple, involving only a single sell ...

s were built in the way south of SR 50. Short realignments have also been built. Of note are the bypass around Vineland (the old road is Lake Street and Ruby Lake Road), the realignment at Keene Road south of Apopka (moving it back to the old location next to the Florida Central Railroad, now the

West Orange Trail The West Orange Trail is a long multi-use rail trail owned by Orange County Parks and Recreation in Orange County, Florida, in the United States. The paved trail passes through downtown Oakland, Winter Garden, and Apopka with most of its length b ...

), the realignment just south of Old Winter Garden Road, and the realignment just north of

, crossing an arm of Lake Steer. As a result of these last two realignments, most of the old road towards Gotha is no longer used by through traffic. The road named Old Clarcona Road, south of downtown Apopka, was never the paved through road; it served through traffic before the 1926 bond issue. The part north of SR 438 was taken over by the state at some point, as SR 435, and is now a county road again, CR 435. SR 435 continued east on SR 438 and south on Hiawassee Road, jogging east on SR 50 to reach Kirkman Road, which is still SR 435. SR 435 also continued north into Lake County to end at SR 46 in

Mount Plymouth Mount Plymouth or Mount Osorno is a conspicuous peak rising to 520 m in the northeast extremity of Dryanovo Heights, Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. The peak has precipitous and partly ice-free northern slopes, and sur ...

; this is also CR 435. A while ago, CR 435 signs were installed at the south end, where it meets CR 535 (former SR 535); this section was never SR 435 but may have been state-maintained (along with Good Homes Road). Orange County has stated that the road is not CR 435, but has not removed the signs, and in fact new county-installed green signs at the intersection still mention the number.

Major intersections

References

* Various records at the Orange County Public Works Building, including 1930 plans for paved roads {{Coord, 28.5644809, -81.4920999, display=title Roads in Orange County, Florida Roads in Orlando, Florida County roads in Orange County, Florida