Downtown Orlando's Gertrude's Walk

Any Orlando resident will tell you that the city has grown significantly in the past few years. People are flocking here, and the population is growing by about 1,000 people per week. While Orlando hasn’t always been growing at such a rate, its history is filled with stories of people from elsewhere moving here and making an impact. Take Gertrude Sweet. Born in New Orleans in 1862, she moved to Orlando in the 1870s, joining two brothers and one sister who had already made the move. And that decision would impact the City Beautiful, as Gertrude would become the namesake for Gertrude’s Walk, a pedestrian walkway stretching from West Church Street to West Washington Street.

Gertrude herself was known as “the most beautiful woman in Orange County,” and the Orlando Sentinel described the 100-foot wide street named after her as “a beauty.” The avenue was derailed when a railroad company purchased the land to construct a line from Orlando to the Atlantic Coast. As a result, Orange Avenue became the City’s main thoroughfare, and Gertrude’s Avenue transformed from a road to a trail.