Adelaide FAVOUR Snow, Foremother of Altamonte Springs

Fanny is the first known child born at modern day Altamonte Springs. She was born in February, 1873, one full decade before the Altamonte Hotel opened for business built at what is today the intersection of SR 436 and Maitland Avenue. ALTAMONT, 3 miles distant and spelled without an ‘E’, hadn’t yet been established by Dr. Washington Kilmer. His Altamont Post Office opened ‘over there’ in December of 1874.

Central Florida historians have not officially recognized Fanny as the first born Altamonte child, nor that her parent’s had homesteaded at this place for that matter. Fanny’s father was Edgar J. SNOW. Her mother, a native of Brooklyn, NY who as a teenager relocated to Chicago, our ‘Foremother’ of Altamonte Springs, was Adelaide (FAVOUR) Snow.

Water from “Altamonte Spring” (singular), per the Hotel’s 1880s brochure, The Altamonte in the Paradise of America, was tested in Boston and said to be “exceedingly pure.” The second spring owned by the hotel was a sulphur spring and located three miles from the hotel, whereas the exceedingly pure spring was mere steps from the hotel, accessed via a gentle sloping path leading to ‘Lake ADELAIDE.’

Adelaide Favour married Edgar J. Snow on 25 April, 1871 at Chicago, Ill. As newlyweds the two ventured south to Florida, where Edgar, a veteran of the Civil War, homesteaded 160 acres fronting on the west side of an unnamed lake. A lake he named for his bride! The land owned by Snow encompassed also a portion of the east parking lot of the present day Altamonte Mall.

SNOW’S Station was the original South Florida Railroad depot located 3 miles south of Longwood. SUNRAIL stops at there today, but the name is now Altamonte Springs.

Boston investors began acquiring land for a hotel and resort in 1882, land surrounding acreage the Snow’s had already sold off in small parcels. That same year, “Edgar J. Snow of Snowville, Orange County, Florida, and his wife Adelaide”, sold the last of their central Florida property, and moved west to Oregon.

The lake Edgar named for his wife is all that remains of the first settlement established at the modern day intersection of SR 436 and Maitland Avenue. The spring has long since been plugged, unfortunately, and many today do not know the tranquil body of water here memorializes a brave woman who gave birth in the wilds, bringing into the world the first Altamonte Springs born child.         

Adelaide (Favour) SNOW died August 17, 1914 at Portland, Oregon. Edgar, a lonely widower, died three years later. Their daughter Fannie (SNOW) Ruffner, born 1873 at Snowville, died in Oregon, July 18, 1941.

Tomorrow: Orlando’s Librarian & Historian