1838 Map of Florida

This is the image I'm considering using to overlay my project.

Success!

I now have a list of more than 400,000 Orange County property parcels with building permit dates. Now I need to find an affordable way to geocode all those addresses! I'm currently looking at Texas A&M GeoServices--it appears as though they will allow me to do it in batches of 2500 for free if I credit them, which I most certainly will.

Make sure and go here if you want free geoservicing: http://geoservices.tamu.edu/

Digital Project Progress Report

1. Title: Orlando: from 85 people to 300,000
2. Abstract - There is a field (shown above) that shows the history of building permits on the property for a significant percentage of Orange County addresses--I have seen it go back as early as 1929, and have only found one that indicated no buildings were associated with the address. The employees at the Orange County Property Appraiser's Office are happy to share with me the data, charging only a nominal fee if it takes substantial clerical time to pull. Armed with a csv or .xlsx file with the addresses and dates, I can use www.gpsvisualizer.com to do a bulk address-to-coordinates conversion, and then transfer all of that processed data into visual eyes for a powerful illustration of the property development of Orlando over the past seventy to one hundred years. 
3. Principal Data Sources: Orange County Property Records
4. Visualization Platform: VisualEyes
5. Notes: I almost called this blog post "Getting Earlier than 1994." After an encouraging phone conversation, I sent the following email to an employee at Orange County Property Appraisers (OCPA):

The employee reassured me that I had come to the right place, and if I came by he/she would provide the data I need and I would not even need to pay the $50 special request fee. I was jubilant...and then more than a little bemused last week when I learned that what the employee had for me went back as far as 1994. After about 20 minutes there, I left with the reassurance that they will find where that building permit data is stored, because they could not find it within the data that they were about to give me. I have not heard back from them, and so tomorrow is probably the time when I will have to cut my losses and switch to a modest alternative digital project, their enthusiastic desire to help notwithstanding.