Joe Tinker and Tinker Building
Orlando, Orange County, Florida
Marker Inscription
Joseph B. Tinker Baseball Real Estate The Tinker Building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for Joe Tinker's contribution to sports and commerce. Joe Tinker played shortstop for the Chicago Cubs for 15 years. As a leading National League fielder and member of the famous "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double play trio, Tinker helped the Cubs win the World Series in 1906, 07, 08, and 1910. He also played for the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Federals, retiring from professional baseball in 1921 to manage the Orlando Tigers. Tinker Field is named in his honor. Joe Tinker was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947. The Tinker Building was built in 1925 for Joe Tinker's real estate office, and was restored in 1979.
Erected by Orlando Community Redevelopment Agency
The Story
Joe Tinker played shortstop for the Chicago Cubs for fifteen years, anchoring the famed "Tinker to Evers to Chance" double-play combination immortalized in verse and helping the Cubs to four pennants and World Series titles in 1906–1910. After retiring in 1921 he managed the Orlando Tigers and turned to real estate, building this 1925 office building for his firm. Tinker entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947, and the building is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Why it matters
The building links a legend of baseball's early golden age to Orlando's growth, showing how a national sports hero helped shape a Florida city's downtown.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Joe Tinker
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dickson-Ives Department Store
Orlando, FL
In 1896 grocer Sidney Ives and feed dealer Henry H. Dickson merged their businesses, and by 1914 they were running a full department store. In 1920 they raised this brick building, dressed in beaux arts flourishes — a classical terra cotta cornice and decorative friezes — to house their thriving trade, which lasted into the mid-1960s. Dickson also championed the city's beautification, honored in 1937 with the dedication of H.H. Dickson Azalea Park.
Walter Gropius and Robert Murphy
Orlando, FL · est. 2018
This twenty-foot concrete piece is a surviving fragment of the "brise-soleil" sunscreen wall that wrapped Orlando's "Round Building," a modernist landmark that stood across from City Hall from 1964 to 2014. The building was designed by architect Robert Murphy, a Harvard graduate who studied under Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus. Its salvaged curtain-wall segment preserves a tangible link to mid-century modern design in central Florida.
Walt Disney World
Bay Lake, FL
This bronze dedication plaque marks the 1971 opening of Walt Disney World near Orlando, the sprawling resort that transformed Central Florida's cattle-and-citrus flatlands into the world's most-visited vacation destination. It honors Walt Disney (1901–1966), the animator and showman whose earlier Disneyland proved the theme-park concept, and whose vision for a far larger 'Florida Project' was carried out after his death by the company he built. The plaque frames the resort as a tribute to his philosophy of imaginative, family-centered entertainment.
John P. Donnelly, Mount Dora Pioneer
Mount Dora, FL
In 1879, John P. Donnelly left Pittsburgh for the young settlement of Mount Dora in Central Florida's lake country, part of the wave of newcomers who built up the state's interior in the decades after the Civil War. In 1881 he married Annie McDonald Stone, already a prominent local landholder, tying his fortunes to one of the community's established families. Together they were among the figures who helped shape the early town.