Chicago was the scene for the international celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Over 27,500,000 people visited the 1893 Columbian Exposition. There were 150 new buildings, which President Grover Cleveland called the "White City."
A booth there advertised Grove City, on Lemon Bay, in Florida. This was the germ for the grand dream of three brothers, Herbert, Howard, and Ira Nichols, according to Florence Johnson. The Nichols brothers planned to buy cheap Florida land and develop a Lemon Capital.
In 1894 the Nichols brothers bought land and two years later recorded the plat for a 2,000-acre town with twenty-four city blocks and ninety-eight grove lots. They named the town and its streets for their hometown, Englewood, Illinois. To promote their idea, they advertised that only prospects who bought ten or more acres for a lemon grove could buy a lot in the city. The lots sold well at $30 an acre. New owners planted lemon trees.
The Great Freeze the winter of 1894-95 ended the dream. The hard freeze, with temperatures going down to fourteen degrees killed all the lemon trees on the coast.
The Nichols brothers changed their plans and instead promoted Englewood as a winter resort. They built the Englewood Inn, a store, and post office on Lemon Bay. Successful people from Chicago wintered in the area. Eleven years later, the Inn burned to the ground, ending their dream of the winter resort.
When Herbert K. Nichols sold the store and post office to Pete Buchan, he said that he might try prospecting for gold.
Englewood became a fishing village.