Orlando is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located in Braxton and Lewis counties,

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

, United States. It is located on Oil Creek, a tributary of the

Little Kanawha River The Little Kanawha River is a tributary of the Ohio River, 169 mi (269 km) long,Gilchrist-Stalnaker, Joy Gregoire. 2006. "Little Kanawha River." ''The West Virginia Encyclopedia''. Ken Sullivan, editor. Charleston, WV: West Vir ...

History

The first settlers came to Oil Creek's wilderness in the early decades of the 19th century from Virginia and Maryland, many from the area of the South Branch of the

Potomac River The Potomac River () is in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography D ...

. The pioneer settlers included the Posey/Skinner, Williams/Blake/Ocheltree, Riffle, and Conrad families, among others. During the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

the area of Oil Creek and Clover Fork was almost entirely Confederate. Many young men joined the

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army (CSA), also called the Confederate army or the Southern army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fi ...

, other residents supported the Confederate cause in less official ways. By the late 19th century, several farming communities had developed in the Oil Creek watershed, including Blake, Peterson, Posey Run, and others. The community that would become Orlando was named Confluence, as it was located at the confluence of two major tributaries, Three Lick and Clover Fork, with Oil Creek. These little communities in Oil Creek’s watershed tended to include a one room school, one or two churches, and perhaps a general store, blacksmith and/or grist mill. In the late 19th century the Coal and Coke and then the Baltimore and Ohio railroad lines were built and they crossed near the community of Confluence. The community of Confluence became a sizable and prosperous town. In 1917 Confluence’s name was changed to Orlando for reasons that remain unclear. The town of Orlando flourished in the early 20th century, until train routes changed. From the early 19th century until the mid-20th century, most of the land was devoted to family farming and farming for profit. Major industries have included lumbering, livestock, natural gas and oil production, railroad maintenance and hospitality.

Today

Because of damming projects in the late 20th century, Orlando today, surprisingly, sits in the center of West Virginia’s Lake Distric

situated between the Stonewall Jackson and Burnsville recreation areas. Most of the farming land is being returned to forest. The community is still populated by the descendants of the original settlers of the region. Orlando has two churches,

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

and United Methodist, and a post office. Landmarks include the white frame Methodist Church built in 1873. the Warehouse, a white frame structure built about 1907 to house a produce business, and the red brick church built by the Roman Catholic parish of St. Michael in 1917O'Donovan, Donal. ''The Rock From Which You Were Hewn'' self-published 1989, . and today home of the thriving Baptist congregation.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in West Virginia Unincorporated communities in Braxton County, West Virginia Unincorporated communities in Lewis County, West Virginia Populated places established in the 19th century