The City of Kissimmee was originally a small trading post on the northern bank of Lake Tohopekaliga known as the community of Allendale. After the Civil War, this area was included in a purchase of four million acres of marshland and plains by Hamilton Disston, the owner of Disston Saw Company in Philadelphia. The sale price for the land totaled $1 million at 25 cents an acre! The infusion of $1 million to the state of Florida reportedly rescued the State from financial disaster. In January 1881, Disston contracted to drain the area and deepen the Kissimmee River, so products could be shipped into the Gulf of Mexico and points beyond. Many steamboat captains navigated the chain of lakes leading from Kissimmee to the Gulf with cargoes of cypress lumber and sugar cane.

1845 - Florida is granted statehood.

1873 - Kissimmee's first post office is established near Shingle Creek. The first postmaster was Clement R. Tyner.

1882 - Florida, the first newspaper in Kissimmee was published. A one-room schoolhouse opened on Main Street and the First United Methodist Church opened its doors.

1883 - Thirty three of 36 registered voters voted to incorporate Allendale as Kissimmee City. The first elected Mayor was T.A. Bass.

1884 - W.B. Makinson, Sr. opens Makinson Hardware in downtown Kissimmee, which remains Florida's oldest operating hardware store.

1895 - A disastrous freeze led many families to relocate further south. Hamilton Disston's land company stops payments on bonds and returns to Philadelphia.