The Avon Park Idea, the town’s own newspaper, 1894–1900
Summary
For seven years Avon Park had a weekly of its own. It carried the town through the freeze, the failure of the company that owned the town, the sheriff’s sale, the incorporation of a town government and the vote that abolished it again. Not one copy is known to survive, and it is catalogued nowhere. What it printed survives because other papers reprinted it, and about two dozen of its passages have been recovered that way.
The paper
It was established, the neighboring editor wrote in 1897, “by the Avon Park Town Co., to boom the town.”[plp-idea] The earliest number anyone has quoted is February 1894, and the Pabor Lake Pineapple was already treating it then as an established paper. It came out on Thursdays, and its publisher told the Pineapple it was mailed on the day of issue.[plp-idea]
Its editors, in the order the record gives them:
| When | Who | How the source names him |
|---|---|---|
| 1894 | A. L. Blue | “Editor Blue” in May, “A. L. Blue” in July, “Publisher Blue” in December[plp-idea] |
| by 31 May 1895 | Gonzales | “A. L. Blue has retired from the editorship of the Avon Park Idea. J. A. Gonzales succeeds Blue.”[savannah-1894-1897] |
| by March 1897 | Gonzales | “now owned, edited and published by E. Gonzales, who has been connected with it since it was established”[plp-idea] |
| by May 1898 | Arthur Winthrop Sargent | answered by name as “Brother Sargeant” in the Ocala Evening Star’s exchange column[ocala-star-1898-05-21] |
The succession from Blue happened in the spring of 1895, not in 1897 as the later notice suggests.[savannah-1894-1897] What the 1897 notice adds is that Gonzales then took the ownership as well as the editorship, and had been “connected with it since it was established.”[plp-idea] Once the Florida Development Company collapsed and its lands were sold at the sheriff’s door in August 1896, the Idea turned against the company’s former management: in June 1897 William E. Pabor remarked in the Pabor Lake Pineapple that “it is rather a late day for the Avon Park Idea to ‘turn on the search light,’ when one remembers that its present ‘editor and publisher’ has been such for three or four years and had control of its columns during most of the time the tragedies and comedies he records as historical facts were on the boards.”[plp-idea]
His initials are given three different ways and none is corroborated. The Savannah paper of 1895 reads “J. A. Gonzales” — checked against the page image; the Pabor Lake Pineapple of 1897 reads “E. Gonzales”; and the town history of 1976 gives “A. L. Gonzales”. Whether these are one man, or more than one Gonzales on the paper at different times, is not settled by anything yet found.[savannah-1894-1897][plp-idea] How Sargent’s tenure fits beside theirs is not stated anywhere.
It ended not by closing but by being sold for parts. On 14 December 1900 the Ocala Evening Star reported that “parties in Orlando have purchased the Avon Park Idea plant and propose to start a daily in the Phenomenal City.”[ocala-star-1900-12-14] The press and type went to Orlando.
What survives of it
The fullest passage is its account of the opening of the Bank of Avon Park in October 1894, several hundred words reprinted by a Minnesota paper because the bank’s cashier had come from that town.[idea-1894-bank]
Some forty shorter passages survive besides, in three places: the Pabor Lake Pineapple, which quoted its neighbor constantly; the Savannah Morning News, whose Florida column reprinted Florida papers week by week; and The Florida Agriculturist of DeLand, which took the Idea’s farming items.[plp-idea][savannah-1894-1897][fa-idea]
The earliest of them is from 5 September 1894, a second-hand trade note on fiber-growing in Florida from sisal and “bayonet leaves” — not about Avon Park, and twice hedged “it is claimed.”[savannah-1894-1897] Nothing was ever grown or milled for fiber at Avon Park; see Avon Park never had a fiber industry. After that: a trip to Pabor Lake, February 1894; the first anniversary picnic at Pabor Lake, July 1894; wedding notices of May 1894 and March 1895; an argument headed “Bartow or Haines City, Which?” on where the town’s railroad should go, 14 March 1895; “We Can’t Wait” on the same subject; “Opening our railroad,” 12 September 1895; a model one-acre garden on Pleasant Street kept by John T. Hendricks; Judge Ziba King’s sixty thousand head of cattle and the two or three hundred that went through the Park every week for the Tampa and Jacksonville market; lettuce, dwarf bananas, orange-grove sales, canneries, the cost of living, the bass in Lake Verona, and a watermelon crop the paper estimated so often that the figure drifted between printings.[plp-idea][savannah-1894-1897][fa-idea]
One passage can be checked against itself. The Idea’s argument for southern canneries — “Southern canneries can operate eight months each year; northern canneries about three months” — was reprinted by the Savannah paper on 19 November 1896 and by The Florida Agriculturist three weeks later, word for word. That the two agree exactly is as close as anyone will get to reading the original page.[savannah-1894-1897][fa-idea]
The last of its words that anyone has preserved are its comment on the town voting away its own government in March 1899:
Thus has been settled a matter which has been a source of much dissatisfaction, discord, misunderstanding and some unnecessary ill feeling among our citizens, which, let us hope, is ended forever.[savannah-1899-03-09]
Related
- The Florida Home Seeker, Avon Park’s own newspaper
- The Avon Park Idea of 1894 on the opening of the Bank of Avon Park
- Newspapers of Avon Park
- The Pabor Lake Pineapple
- Avon Park voted its own town government out of existence in 1899
- Arthur Winthrop Sargent
- John T. Hendricks
References
- plp-idea — W. E. Pabor, editor and publisher. The Pabor Lake Pineapple, 1894 to 1897: quotations of and references to the Avon Park Idea. 15 September 1897. pabor-lake-pineapple.md
- savannah-1894-1897 — The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.). The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, Florida column, eleven issues between 5 September 1894 and 14 September 1897, quoting and reporting on the Avon Park Idea. 14 September 1897. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063034/1894-09-05/ed-1/?sp=6
- fa-idea — The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.). The Florida Agriculturist, DeLand, thirteen issues between 15 May 1895 and 27 January 1897, quoting the Avon Park Idea. 27 January 1897. florida-agriculturist.md
- savannah-1899-03-09 — The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.). The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 9 March 1899, page 6, quoting the Avon Park Idea on the dissolution election. 9 March 1899. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063034/1899-03-09/ed-1/?sp=6
- ocala-star-1898-05-21 — The Ocala Evening Star. The Ocala Evening Star, 21 May 1898, page 1: an exchange with the Avon Park Idea, addressing its editor as Brother Sargeant. 21 May 1898. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84027621/1898-05-21/ed-1/?sp=1
- ocala-star-1900-12-14 — The Ocala Evening Star. The Ocala Evening Star, 14 December 1900, page 2: parties in Orlando have purchased the Avon Park Idea plant. 14 December 1900. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84027621/1900-12-14/ed-1/?sp=2
- idea-1894-bank — The Avon Park Idea, reprinted in The Redwood Gazette (Redwood Falls, Minn.). The Avon Park Idea of October 1894 on the opening of the Bank of Avon Park, reprinted in The Redwood Gazette. 18 October 1894. avon-park-idea-1894-bank-opening.md
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- corroborated — More than one independent source agrees.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- W. E. Pabor, editor and publisher, The Pabor Lake Pineapple, 1894 to 1897: quotations of and references to the Avon Park Idea (pabor-lake-pineapple.md) (1897) · newspaper
- The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, Florida column, eleven issues between 5 September 1894 and 14 September 1897, quoting and reporting on the Avon Park Idea (1897) · newspaper
- The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), The Florida Agriculturist, DeLand, thirteen issues between 15 May 1895 and 27 January 1897, quoting the Avon Park Idea (florida-agriculturist.md) (1897) · newspaper
- The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 9 March 1899, page 6, quoting the Avon Park Idea on the dissolution election (1899) · newspaper
- The Ocala Evening Star, The Ocala Evening Star, 21 May 1898, page 1: an exchange with the Avon Park Idea, addressing its editor as Brother Sargeant (1898) · newspaper
- The Ocala Evening Star, The Ocala Evening Star, 14 December 1900, page 2: parties in Orlando have purchased the Avon Park Idea plant (1900) · newspaper
- The Avon Park Idea, reprinted in The Redwood Gazette (Redwood Falls, Minn.), The Avon Park Idea of October 1894 on the opening of the Bank of Avon Park, reprinted in The Redwood Gazette (avon-park-idea-1894-bank-opening.md) (1894) · newspaper
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