As the Orlando Sentinel celebrates its 150th birthday today, a new museum display showcases the newspaper’s long history and its place in the lives of Central Florida residents.
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“Extra! Extra! The Orlando Sentinel Turns 150,” a pocket exhibit produced by the Orange County Regional History Center, is now available to the public. It features photos and artifacts from the history center’s archives.
“I wanted to really prioritize things that not only showed the history and that were interesting, that people wouldn’t see all the time, but also things that highlight the role that the paper played in the community,” said Katie Kelley, curator of exhibitions. “It’s not just the news; it is an institution of a community.”
She also explored the human angle of stories, such as home-grown astronaut John Young, who was part of NASA’s Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs.
“This is a photograph of John Young’s parents holding the Sentinel from when he touched down for one of the missions, and then we have the cover of that newspaper also,” Kelley said.
The exhibit includes a full reproduction of “The Galley Proof,” created by Martin Andersen, who came to Orlando in 1931 to run the Sentinel and its companion newspaper, the Reporter-Star and then became their owner in 1945.
“Andersen actually created a newsletter that he would send during World War II to his friends and locals who were serving overseas to keep them aware of what was happening at home,” Kelley said.
Some documents from the museum archives are too fragile to put on display, so they were reproduced on panels, including a ledger from the late 1890s.
“It’s all the people that were subscribed,” Kelley said.
The newspaper’s longtime downtown headquarters, located near the crossroads of Orange Avenue and Colonial Drive, is included.
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“We have photographs of that building from the collection from the 1950s and ‘60s, and then we sort of referenced the fact that it was in use until COVID hit, and everybody went remote,” Kelley said.
Orlando Sentinel employees worked from those offices from 1951 until October 2020. More than 10,000 residents toured the space when it opened under Andersen’s leadership.
“One of the things they got to show off was one of, if not the first, escalators in Orlando,” said Roger Simmons, current executive editor of the Orlando Sentinel.
“I think the community took pride in the fact that the newspaper built this great building, but it was built for the community to help make sure that we could serve it in the years ahead,” Simmons said. “That building served us well into the 2000s.”
Andersen also emphasized the role of the region’s roads, Simmons said.
“One of the things that was very big on his list of priorities for the region was improving roads. … You go, ‘Well, that’s not like a critical issue to be pushing,’ but it’s what led to the growth of tourism here,” Simmons said. “You couldn’t get to Orlando without these great roads, and that was also one reason Walt Disney picked Orlando.”
Key dates in Orlando Sentinel’s 150-year history
“Extra! Extra!” is installed in the space to the right of the history center’s lobby, the former location of its gift shop. It is scheduled to be there through Jan. 3. Previous pocket exhibits have included looks at vintage hotels, the women’s soccer personalities known as the ‘85ers and Tupperware pioneer Brownie Wise.
The temporary exhibits are chances “to highlight some artifacts in our collection that really haven’t had the opportunity to be on display,” Kelley said.
“It’s really cool that the history center is doing this to celebrate the history of the Sentinel, because we’ve been dedicated for the past 150 years to writing the first draft of history for Orlando,” Simmons said. “It’s something that we take great pride in, and a legacy that we’re going to continue going forward, hopefully, for the next 150 years.”
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