If you have lived in Valrico for five years, you have probably never been to the original town. If you have lived here for twenty, there is a decent chance you have driven through it without realizing what it was.

Where It Is

Take Valrico Road north from SR-60. Pass the railroad tracks. Turn onto one of the side streets to the west. You are now standing in the original town of Valrico, platted by the Valrico Land Company in 1913 on the southern shore of Lake Valrico.

The streets are laid out in a grid. They are lined with mature oaks that are 80 to 100 years old. The lots are oversized by modern standards. The homes are a mix of eras: some from the mid-twentieth century, some updated, a few that look like they have been here since the early days.

There is no sign marking this as historic. No plaque. No walking tour. Just a quiet residential grid that most of Valrico's 38,000 residents have no idea exists.

What Used to Be Here

This grid is where Valrico's first businesses operated. Lovett Brandon built the first general store in 1912, somewhere in this vicinity. The Florida Central and Peninsular Railroad depot sat near here, and the Fugazzi Brothers citrus packing plant operated by the tracks. W.F. Miller's improvement projects centered on this area, and the Valrico Civic Center (now the James McCabe Theater) was built at 506 Fifth Street in 1915 using bricks made from local Valrico clay.

Lake Valrico, the body of water that gave the original Long Pond settlement its name, is right there. In the pre-Civil War era, the cotton plantations of the Long Pond settlement surrounded this lake.

What It Looks Like Now

The commercial buildings are gone. The depot is gone. The packing plants are gone. What remains are the streets themselves, the tree canopy, the lake, and the 1915 civic center building.

If you drive the grid slowly, you can feel the difference between this area and the subdivisions that surround it. The streets are narrower. The lots are irregular. The oaks are massive. It has the feel of a small Florida town from a different era, because that is exactly what it is.

Why You Should See It

In a community that is 99% post-1979 suburban development, the original Valrico grid is the only physical connection to the community's founding. It is a 5-minute drive from the SR-60 strip malls, but it feels like a different state.

If you are thinking about moving to Valrico, take a detour through this grid before you tour the subdivisions. It will give you context for the community you are joining. This is not a master-planned suburb that appeared out of a cornfield in 2005. This is a place with roots that go back to the 1880s, and those roots are still visible if you know where to look.

---

Barrett Henry is a Broker Associate with RE/MAX Collective. (813) 733-7907 | nowtb.com