The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The railroad reached Avon Park in 1912, and the state’s own records prove it

Popular accounts of Avon Park give the arrival of the railway as 1911 or 1912, more or less interchangeably. The date can be settled from a source nobody local appears to have used: the annual reports of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, which printed a table of every station on every line in the state, with its mileage from the end of the line, once a year.

The Atlantic Coast Line’s branch does not appear at all in the report for the year ending 28 February 1911.[frc-14] Construction had only just begun at the northern end of the route: on 30 December 1910 The St. Lucie County Tribune reported that eight miles of grading south from Haines City and two miles of track had been finished so that a construction train could operate, and optimistically projected that the roadbed grading would reach Avon Park by 1 September 1911.[slct-1910-12-30]

In the report for the year ending 29 February 1912 the branch appears for the first time, and it is listed as “Haines City to Frostproof” — twenty-eight miles, stopping ten miles short of Avon Park.[frc-15]

In the report for the year ending 28 February 1913 the same table reads “Haines City to Sebring,” running forty-six and a half miles, with Avon Park among its stations at mile 39.0.[frc-16] The report for the following year prints the name in full: “Avon Park 39.0.”[frc-17]

The rails were therefore laid through Avon Park during calendar 1912, in the twelve months between the two reports. Not 1911. The National Register nomination for the Avon Park Historic District agrees, giving Lake Wales in 1911 and Avon Park in 1912.[nrhp-90000486]

Two newspapers settle it beyond doubt. In March 1912 a travel writer called it “the new line of the railroad from Haines City to Avon Park” and noted that Frostproof had had no rail connection at all “up to this year.”[lakeland-1912-03-07] In June 1912 an Ocala paper mentioned a man “finishing up some work on a new railroad at Avon Park.”[ocala-1912-06-21] Under construction at Avon Park in the first half of 1912; in the state’s station list by the following February.

Why it matters. The railway is the hinge of the town’s second beginning. Avon Park’s population was 225 in 1900 and only 285 in 1910; by 1920, eight years after the rails came, it was 890.[nrhp-90000486] Dating the arrival correctly dates everything that followed from it — the packing houses, the crate mills, the incorporation of the town in 1913, and the land boom.

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. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Fourteenth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 28 February 1911 (1911)
  2. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Fifteenth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 29 February 1912 (1912)
  3. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 28 February 1913 (1913)
  4. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Seventeenth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 28 February 1914 (1914)
  5. The Lakeland Evening Telegram, The Lakeland Evening Telegram, 7 March 1912, page 2 (1912)
  6. The Ocala Banner, The Ocala Banner, 21 June 1912, page 9 (1912)
  7. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District (1990)
  8. The St. Lucie County Tribune, The St. Lucie County Tribune (Fort Pierce, Fla.), 30 December 1910, page 2: Florida Topics, grading south from Haines City toward Avon Park (1910) · newspaper

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