In the mid-1850s, Dr. J.D. Starke built a camp on the north side of an open pine wooded lake that provided clear and clean water. As the camp grew into a village, it took the name Starke Lake, a name the lake upon which the group settled bears to this day.
In 1886, a group of original settlers, led an effort to have the town platted and changed the name to Ocoee, after a river in Tennessee.
The first commercial citrus nursery in the United States started in Ocoee, supplying many other groves in Florida with their first trees as well as shipping young citrus trees to California.
Ocoee incorporated as a town on November 22, 1923 and incorporated as a city in 1925. In 2000, the completion of Florida State Road 429 (the Western Expressway) linked Ocoee with Walt Disney World to the south.
The City of Ocoee encourages local residents to become inventors and creators of startups in retail, music, beauty, healthcare, legal, home repair services, medical support services, information technology (IT), restaurants, makeup, online sales, cleaning services, car repair, beauty salons, barber shops, education technology, and senior care to help Ocoee’s local business community to grow.