Mayor Rusty Johnson, Okoye Mayor, who has lived in the city for 70 years, has always considered the West Orange County community as “the perfect place to live.”
Longtime Central Floridians have seen the city grow from around 12,000 when they began as mayor in 1986. Johnson will join the growing community to celebrate Okoye’s Centennial with this weekend’s big birthday party at Bill Breeze Park and next week’s time capsule celebration.
Free Centennial celebrations on Friday evening include a live performance by smoking jackets and a Jerry Williams band, food trucks, local vendors, historic Wizards Magaire home and ride tours, and Ferris Wheels. On Tuesday, the public will be able to participate in the time capsule ceremony, during which all participants will be able to display items contributed by them and enjoy the performance of the OCOEE High School jazz band.
“We continue to embrace the intimacy of our community and our city. It’s a small town feeling where everyone knows each other. It’s a great place to raise a family.” “We held many events throughout the year to give families a place to bring their children without the arms and legs.”
Ocoee first settled in the mid-1800s, paving the way for Dr. HK Clark, Charles J. Chun and RBF Roper to develop the subdivision in 1886, and named it after the Ocoee River in Tennessee. Agriculture has always been a major draw for the region, which once featured a wealth of citrus groves and fruit luggage houses. Ocoee became a municipality in 1923 and was established in 1925 as a city.
Johnson remembers 70 of the city’s 100 years until his current tenure, trying to prey on the freezing of citrus groves.
“When I was in school, we took an Agricultural FFA. The big thing was learning how to sprout and propagate orange trees. We worked at Orange Grove at night during the freeze,” he said. “You got $5 to $10 to work all night, and you had to leave school the next day.”
The area saw a new surge in residents when Walt Disney World opened in Orlando in 1971. The citrus industry collapsed in the late 1980s after a series of catastrophic freezes. Still, the OCOEE community continues to grow and welcomes people who have moved from the US and around the world.
“The culture changes, but this is still a homemade place. When there are community events, it’s a close deal,” Johnson said. “We have a great police station, a great fire station. We have over 400 employees, many of whom live in OCOEE. Today you can live and work here and there and you don’t have to leave.”
The mayor has seen his high school friends leave and his community changes over time, but he says OCOEE will always be his home.
“I have five children, four of whom live in Okoye. One of them lives on Merritt Island. I have one grandchild, eight of whom live in Okoye,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to live anywhere else. I love it here.”
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Original release: May 8, 2025 10am Edt
