Chapter 6662, Laws of Florida 1913: the charter of the Town of Avon Park
The act
Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913, a special act:
“AN ACT to Establish and Constitute a Municipality in DeSoto County, Florida, To Be Known and Designated as the Town of Avon Park, and to Define Its Territorial Boundaries, and to Provide for Its Jurisdiction, Powers and Privileges.”[lof-1913-6662]
Approved by the Governor on 23 May 1913, and effective from that date. (This project previously recorded 28 May, from the volume’s OCR text. The page image, read on 2 September 2026, prints “Approved May 23, 1913.”)
Avon Park had by then existed as a place for twenty-seven years. It had been platted, sold, lost at a sheriff’s sale, and finally reached by a railway the year before. This is the act that gave it a government.
The boundary
Section 1 lays out a square a mile and a half on each side, two and a quarter square miles:
“Commencing at the northeast corner of the south half of southwest quarter of section fourteen, running west one and one-half miles to northwest corner of the south half of the southwest quarter of section fifteen, thence south on the section line one and a half miles to the southwest corner of the north half of northwest quarter of section twenty-seven, thence one and a half miles east to the southeast corner of the north half of northwest quarter of section twenty-six, thence on half section lines one and one-half miles to point of beginning.”[lof-1913-6662]
The printed section does not repeat the township and range, but the sections named — 14, 15, 22, 23, 26 and 27 — place it in Township 33 South, Range 28 East. The square is centered on Section 22, the section that holds the original townsite and for which no federal land patent was ever issued.
Section 1 also allows the town to take in more territory at any time, on a majority vote of the registered voters of the land to be added.
The first government
Section 47 names the town’s first officers outright, to hold office until the regular election of 1913:
| Office | Name |
|---|---|
| Mayor | Herbert Seaverns |
| Marshal | Irvin Raulerson |
| Assessor | S. F. Tucker |
| Clerk and Assessor | Ellis R. West |
| Tax Collector | C. E. Lanier |
| Aldermen | W. O. Skipper, Wm. King, G. F. Kellogg, W. H. Daugherty, H. E. Godwin |
Section 5 vests the corporate authority in a mayor, town council, clerk, assessor, treasurer, marshal, collector and town attorney, any two offices being combinable in one person by ordinance, and requires every officer to be a citizen of Florida and a qualified voter. Section 6 elects the mayor annually and makes him the magistrate for offenses against town ordinances, with power to summon witnesses and administer oaths.
Wm. King is almost certainly William A. King, whom the Pabor Lake Pineapple named in August 1893 as “the first settler of Avon Park.” Irvin Raulerson appears in the Avon Park column of The De Soto County News in December 1905, improving his cottage with a new piazza. W. O. Skipper belongs to the Skipper family that later founded the Scenic Highlands Development Company.
Why this document matters
Three incorporation dates have circulated for Avon Park — 1886 as “Lake Forest,” 1913 as the Town of Avon Park, and 1926 as the City of Avon Park — with no chapter number attached to any of them. This is the act behind the middle one, and the 1886 date can now be set aside for good: a place cannot be incorporated twice, and no 1886 charter exists in the session laws.
The National Register nomination gives 1913 for the incorporation without citing the act.[nrhp-90000486]
How to get it
The volume is LOF1913V2P1 Special Laws.pdf (52 MB) in the Florida State Library’s electronic
documents repository. The directory listing at
http://edocs.dlis.state.fl.us/fldocs/leg/actsflorida/1913/ gives the file names; URL-encode the
spaces. The older <year>/<year>.pdf pattern recorded elsewhere in the source register works only for
the nineteenth-century volumes.
References
- lof-1913-6662 — Legislature of the State of Florida. Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913, Volume 2 Part 1, Special Laws: An Act to Establish and Constitute a Municipality in DeSoto County, Florida, To Be Known and Designated as the Town of Avon Park. 23 May 1913. http://edocs.dlis.state.fl.us/fldocs/leg/actsflorida/1913/LOF1913V2P1%20Special%20Laws.pdf
- nrhp-90000486 — United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District. 22 March 1990. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/90000486_text
Related
- Finding: Avon Park was incorporated by Chapter 6662 of 1913
- Entity: William and Mary King
- Reference: Chapter 8513, Laws of Florida 1921
- Finding: Lake Forest was a plat name, not the town’s former name
Where this comes from
- Evidence
- single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
- Review
- unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
- Rights
- society
Sources
- Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913, Volume 2 Part 1, Special Laws: An Act to Establish and Constitute a Municipality in DeSoto County, Florida, To Be Known and Designated as the Town of Avon Park (1913)
- United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District (1990)
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