The area was originally named Allendale after Confederate Major J. H. Allen, who operated the first cargo steamboat along the
Kissimmee River—the
Mary Belle. It was renamed Kissimmee when it was incorporated as a city in 1883. The modern town, the county seat of Osceola County, was founded before the Civil War by the Bass, Johnson and Overstreet families. The etymology of the name Kissimmee is debated, apart from general agreement that it is Native American in origin. Its growth can be credited to
Hamilton Disston of
Philadelphia, who based his four-million acre (8,000 km2)
drainage operation out of the town. Disston had contracted with the financially wobbly state of Florida to drain its southern lands, for which he would own half of all he successfully drained. This deal made Disston the largest single landowner in the United States. Disston's
dredging and
land speculation required a small
steamboat industry to transport people and goods along the new waterway. The Kissimmee
shipyard was responsible for building most of these large steamships, which were just one jump ahead of civilization—with Kissimmee as the jumping off point. Concurrently, the
South Florida Railroad was growing and extended the end of its line from
Sanford down to Kissimmee, making the town on
Lake Tohopekaliga a
transportation hub for
Central Florida. On February 12, 1885, the
Florida Legislature incorporated the
Kissimmee City Street Railway. Kissimmee's heyday was short-lived. Expanding railroads began to challenge the steamships for carrying freight and passengers. By 1884, the South Florida Railroad, now part of the
Plant System, had extended its tracks to
Tampa. The
Panic of 1893 was the worst
depression the U.S. had experienced up to that time, crushing land speculation and unsound debt. Disston closed his Kissimmee land operation. Consecutive freezes in 1894 and 1895 wiped out the citrus industry. The freezes, combined with
South Florida's growth and the relocation of steamship operations to
Lake Okeechobee, left Kissimmee dependent on
open range cattle ranching. Kissimmee had a population of 4,310 in 1950. At that point, there was some citrus packing as well as ranching. Ranching remained an important part of the local economy until
Walt Disney World opened nearby in 1971. Tourism and development soon supplanted cattle ranching by a large measure. Even though the Disney facility took over much of the open range cattle lands, cattle ranches still operate nearby, particularly in southern Osceola County. The
1998 Central Florida tornado outbreak killed dozens of people in the area. On August 13, 2004,
Hurricane Charley passed through Kissimmee with winds in excess of , damaging homes and buildings, toppling trees and cutting electrical power to the entire city.
Kissimmee Utility Authority restored power to 54 percent of the residents in the first 72 hours and to 85 percent within one week. Service was restored to all customers on August 28. Three weeks after Hurricane Charley, the area was struck by
Hurricane Frances, then
Hurricane Jeanne three weeks later. ==Geography==