Disney hosted a lottery to choose Celebration’s first residents.
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Celebration’s first residents scored their homes and apartments through a lottery hosted by The Walt Disney Company.
A 1995 article from The Orlando Sentinel reported that once potential homeowners were chosen, they made a refundable $1,000 deposit and an appointment with a sales consultant. The paper reported at the time that homes were worth between $127,000 to over $500,000.
McDonald and his family were among those who entered Disney’s lottery. He and his wife wanted to live in Celebration for education options for their children.
“Disney was going to build a state-of-the-art school, so we wanted to get the kids in,” McDonald said.
The first residents began moving moved into Celebration in 1996, but it wasn’t a bustling town just yet.
“A lot of people moved there from all over the country, but we weren’t really that busy then,” Davison said.
Working in the post office during Celebration’s early years allowed Davison to meet many of the new faces.
“At that point in time, the post office was pretty slow, so a lot of people coming in were residents,” Davison said.
The atmosphere among residents in Celebration was welcoming, which he said was different from his previous post office job in South Miami.
“A lot of them would let you know you didn’t live there,” Davison said about Miami. “In Celebration, nobody ever treated me like an outsider, which is nice in that respect. You felt like part of the community.”
Around 2,700 people called Celebration home by 2000, according to the census data.
