Orange County’s America 250 Story Runs Through UCF’s Citronaut and Maitland’s Art Landmark

ORANGE COUNTY — Orange County’s place on Florida’s America 250 Road Trip comes with one of the strangest and most Florida symbols imaginable: an orange astronaut.

The University of Central Florida is being recognized through the Citronaut, the early Florida Technological University figure that combined two forces that shaped Central Florida’s modern identity — citrus and space. WFTV reported that the America250FL Road Trip features 103 stops across the state and recognizes UCF with the Citronaut, the first mascot-like figure of Florida Technological University, which later became UCF. [1]

For Orlando, that is a cleaner local history hook than another theme-park story.

The Citronaut may look whimsical now, but it points to a serious chapter in Central Florida’s development. UCF says Florida Technological University opened in 1968 after the state created a new university in 1963 to help support the growing space industry tied to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral. The school’s early motto was “Reach for the Stars.” [2]

That mission helped shape the Orlando region before UCF became one of the country’s largest universities and one of Central Florida’s defining institutions.

The Citronaut first appeared on the cover of FTU’s 1968 student handbook. UCF describes the figure as an orange with an astronaut’s head — a visual mashup of Florida’s citrus economy and America’s space-age ambitions. It never became the lasting official mascot, but it has become one of UCF’s most recognizable throwback symbols. [3]

That makes it a fitting America 250 stop. It is local, odd, memorable and tied to a larger national story.

Orange County’s history is often marketed through entertainment, but the America 250 frame points to something older and broader. The county’s story includes agriculture, transportation, higher education, space research, architecture, art and community building.

That broader story can also be seen in Maitland.

America250FL’s Historic and Heritage Sites list includes the Maitland Art Center at 231 W. Packwood Avenue in Maitland. [4]

The Art & History Museums of Maitland says the Maitland Art Center became a National Historic Landmark in 2014 and is the only National Historic Landmark in Central Florida’s four-county region of Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake. The original Research Studio was founded in 1937 by artist and architect Jules André Smith, with support from Mary Louise Curtis Bok, as a colony where artists could live, work and experiment. [5]

The site’s architecture is part of what makes it nationally significant. A&H describes the center’s Aztec- and Mayan-influenced architecture as one of the few remaining examples of Mayan Revival architecture in the Southeast. [5]

Together, UCF and Maitland Art Center give Orange County a more interesting America 250 story than a simple list of tourist stops.

UCF tells the story of modern Florida: space, education, research, technology and a region that grew with the ambitions of the Space Coast. Maitland Art Center tells a different story: art, preservation, architecture and the quieter cultural roots of Central Florida before Orlando became a global tourism brand.

For residents, the lesson is simple. Orange County’s history is not only found in major attractions or downtown skylines. It is also found in a university created for the space age and an art colony that became a rare national landmark.

As America prepares to mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Florida is using the road-trip project to point people toward places that explain the state’s role in the American story.

In Orange County, that story is not one thing.

It is an orange astronaut, a space-age university, an experimental art colony, and a county that keeps reinventing itself while still carrying pieces of its past.

Footnotes

[1] WFTV, “Take a drive down memory lane: New road trip highlights Florida’s history,” Jan. 16, 2026.

[2] University of Central Florida, “The Rise of SpaceU: UCF’s Legacy as a Space University.”

[3] University of Central Florida, “An orange. An astronaut. Almost a mascot.”

[4] America250FL, “Historic and Heritage Sites.”

[5] Art & History Museums of Maitland, “National Historic Landmark.”