The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Winter Scenes Down at Avon Park, Florida

On Sunday 4 May 1913 a New Haven newspaper gave most of a page to Avon Park, because one of its citizens had just come back from wintering there. It printed six photographs and a long interview. It is the fullest picture of Avon Park in the year after the railway arrived that this project has.[nhu-1913-05-04]

The photographs

Six photographs of Avon Park published in The New Haven Union, 4 May 1913

Winter scenes at Avon Park, 1913. The New Haven Union, 4 May 1913, page 23; Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain.[nhu-1913-05-04]

The printed caption reads:

Top Row, Left to Right — Mr. Harry Leigh Down in Florida. Residence of His Brother, Mr. Philip Leigh at Avon Park — Depot at Avon Park — Oxen Bringing in a Big Load of Oranges to the Packing House. Bottom Row, Left to Right — Oxen Resting Near Railroad Station After Hauling a Load of Oranges for 20 Miles — Mr. Philip Leigh’s Winter Home — Palms and Camphor Trees.[nhu-1913-05-04]

The depot

The Avon Park depot, winter of 1912-13

The Avon Park depot, winter of 1912-13. The New Haven Union, 4 May 1913, page 23; Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain.[nhu-1913-05-04]

This project had been looking for a photograph of the first Avon Park depot and had none. Here it is, captioned by hand on the negative itself — “DEPOT AVON PARK FLA” — and the article says plainly that “one of the pictures that accompany this story shows the new railroad station at Avon Park.”[nhu-1913-05-04]

What the picture shows: a small single-story frame building with a steep gable over the office end and a long shallow-pitched roof running out over the platform, board-and-batten or drop-siding walls, shuttered windows either side of a central door, a name board mounted over the door, and the track running past the near corner. Pine woods behind it. It is a standard Atlantic Coast Line country depot of the period, and in the winter of 1912-13 it was about a year old.

The pictures were taken by or for Harry Leigh of New Haven, who wintered at Avon Park. They are therefore amateur photographs by a visitor, not commercial views, which is why they show ox teams and a depot rather than hotels.

What Leigh said about the town

On the railway.

The Atlantic Coast Line has built a branch railroad from Haines City on the main line to Avon Park, a distance of about 40 miles, and although only a year old, they say it has already paid the cost of construction.[nhu-1913-05-04]

That is an independent 1913 confirmation that the branch was built in 1912, and a striking claim about how quickly it paid.

On the town’s business.

During my stay here I purchased a drug store, or the building, and before I left I was offered an advance of $400 on my bargain. Near the store they have erected a $[—],000 business block in which a Masonic lodge is soon to be started, and the wives of the members have already made 10 Masonic aprons. This is of considerable interest to me, as I am a member of Olive Branch lodge and also of Harmony council. The post office is just adjoining my store. In the new block is the local bank, with tiled floors and marble counters, which is pretty good for this young Florida town. Not far from Avon Park is the national home of the Salvation Army on [Deinnen?] lake.[nhu-1913-05-04]

The cost of the business block is illegible in the scan and is left blank here rather than guessed.

On oranges and oxen.

One of the views which I brought home shows an ox team bringing oranges to the packing house. Some of these teams drive in 80 miles with their loads of the best oranges. They have two large orange packing houses at Avon Park. De Soto is the largest county in the state and the center of the fruit raising section.[nhu-1913-05-04]

The printed caption under the photographs says twenty miles; Leigh in the interview says eighty. Either way, growers were hauling fruit to Avon Park by ox team from a long way out, a year after the railway came — which is the point: the railhead made the town a shipping point for a district much larger than itself.

On the lakes and the shooting.

There are many lakes in the region and they apparently have no inlet or outlet. I have fished in three lakes in a day. We usually go out to a lake in a team and fasten the boat right under the wagon and transport it from one lake to the other. There are 32 different lakes in that section of the state. … De Soto county is as large as the entire state of Connecticut. There is splendid bass fishing in the lakes and I have caught bass weighing 14 pounds. There is also good deer and quail shooting and it is almost like a sportsman’s paradise.[nhu-1913-05-04]

On earlier visits Leigh “enjoyed some exciting bear hunting and also has bagged deer. He says the woods are full of game birds,” and one of the lakes “has water near [100] feet deep and unless one is a good swimmer, it would not do to fall overboard.”[nhu-1913-05-04]

And on the park.

Although it is pretty hot down there, we have plenty of ice, the artificial brand which is manufactured [up] to Wauchula. We have a fine park [of] 500 acres in the town, and for a little town, Avon Park is quite up to the times.[nhu-1913-05-04]

Five hundred acres of park inside a town of a few hundred people is a remarkable claim and it needs checking against the plat. It may describe Crosby’s forty-acre-block park scheme of 1888 as it stood in 1913, or the whole of the lakefront reservations, or it may be a booster’s round number repeated by a visitor. It is recorded here because nothing else in this bundle gives an acreage for Avon Park’s parks before the Mile Long Mall was planted in 1923.

Winter residents and community documentation

Harry Leigh of New Haven, Connecticut, wintered at Avon Park for years as the guest of his brother Philip J. Leigh of Atlantic City, who owned a landscaped winter home at Avon Park and served as a director of the Atlantic City Horse Show Association.[nhu-1913-05-04] Harry Leigh also owned a cottage at Avon Park, which he sold during his 1913 visit.

He appears in the New Haven newspapers in earlier seasons:

  • January 1906 — “Harry Leigh, who is wintering at Avon Park, Florida, writes that during the month of December he shot four fine deer near [there].”[nhu-1906-01-24]
  • April 1907 — back from Florida and “more convinced than ever of the need in this country of government supervision over the railroads. He stated today that on the line of railroad where his winter home is situated at Avon Park the railroad service is at times just abominable.”[nhu-1907-04-04]

Because Avon Park lacked its own railway connection until 1912, Leigh’s 1907 reference described the connecting regional rail line at Fort Meade that passengers used to reach the interior ridge by stage or wagon.

References

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

  1. The New Haven Union (New Haven, Conn.), Winter Scenes Down at Avon Park, Florida / Misses Japan But Lands in Florida — Harry Leigh's Fine Outing in the South, The New Haven Union (New Haven, Conn.), 4 May 1913, page 23 (1913)
  2. The Daily Morning Journal and Courier (New Haven, Conn.), The Daily Morning Journal and Courier (New Haven, Conn.), 24 January 1906 — Harry Leigh wintering at Avon Park (1906)
  3. The New Haven Union (New Haven, Conn.), Down in Florida — Trains are Held up For Six Hours or More, The New Haven Union, 4 April 1907 (1907)

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