United States · Florida · Orlando
Parramore, Orlando — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Interstate 4 walls Parramore off from downtown Orlando, a historically Black quarter west of Division Avenue, known for the Wells'Built Museum.
About Parramore
Where to stay in Parramore
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Parramore lies immediately west of downtown Orlando, which puts event nights, the museums, and a short walk into the city core within reach of any bed here. The edge sells itself. Between Division Avenue and Interstate 4 the quarter is given over to the Kia Center and the Bob Carr Theater, a strip of arena and auditorium rather than houses, and it is where visitors naturally land.
West of Division Avenue the grid turns residential. If you want quiet over convenience, look to the blocks off Parramore Avenue, where grocery stores, barber shops, and soul food restaurants keep the street life local.
About Parramore
What are the main landmarks in Parramore?
The Wells'Built Museum on West South Street is the landmark at the centre of Parramore, a hotel the physician William Monroe Wells built for Black travellers barred from Florida's segregated rooms. Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Louis Armstrong stayed here and played the South Street Casino next door. The casino is gone.
Nearby the Holden-Parramore Historic District traces its boundary along West Church Street, Division Avenue, and Parramore Avenue, a survival of the quarter's older streets. The Kia Center and the Bob Carr Theater close the eastern edge.
What is the history of Parramore?
Parramore was built in the 1880s as a segregated quarter, named for James Parramore, the fourteenth mayor of Orlando and a former Confederate soldier who developed it to house the Black workers of white households. Division Avenue held the line. Under Jim Crow no Black family living west of it could cross east after sundown, and when Interstate 4 was cut through it hardened that division into concrete.
A branch library opened west of the line in 1924, in a church rectory, because the main library downtown would not admit Black readers. The wall outlived the law.
Where is Parramore?
Parramore fills the ground between Interstate 4 and Orange Blossom Trail in west-central Orlando, running north to south from Colonial Drive down to Gore Street.
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Updated September 2026