Civic Center 

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After the Christ Church was built in 1881, the building was moved away from town to somewhere called Stum’s Corner, which is considered a separate community of west Longwood. It was located near the corner of Rangeline Road and the station of Church Avenue Station. Back then, it was also a part of a section of Church Avenue, which was known as Markham Road. Also, the road connected with Markham, west of Sanford.

During this time, it was first used as a church called the Self Union Congregation but later changed to the West Longwood Chapel. However, this was not the only community congregating in the Civil Center. The West Longwood Pioneers also used this space for their headquarters. Moving to The Great Freeze of 1894-1895, it unfortunately wrecked the area, and much of the west Longwood community was badly damaged. Many of the west Longwood citizens left the town or just moved closer to Longwood Proper, and then the building just sat, abandoned for two whole decades.
 

The Women of the Settlement established the Longwood Improvement Society on December 28, 1911. The first officer of the Longwood Improvement Society was Mrs. Hardaway, the President, Miss Dunbar, the Secretary, and finally Miss Niemeyer, the Treasurer. It was retitled The Longwood Civic League on February 10, 1913. Later, it became commonly called the Women’s Club. This group is a very important part of the civic life of early Longwood. The goal of this group was to improve the quality of life and bring new generation benefits to the pioneer town. The group helped raise money for street lights, surfacing roads with sawdust, hosting events, cleaning up the trash around Longwood, and they managed a library out of this building for decades.

 

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