The exact date of the Atlantic Coast Line depot’s demolition

A persistent historiographical conflict exists regarding the demolition date of the 1912 Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) railroad depot that formerly stood on Michigan Avenue at Church Street in Avon Park.

Different sources give conflicting dates:

1. “The early 1980s”: Stated in the 1990 National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) nomination for the Avon Park Historic District.
2. “1970”: Documented in Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell’s 1976 centennial history, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida.

Resolution of the Date Conflict

The exact year of demolition is 1970.

The NRHP nomination’s claim of the “early 1980s” is factually impossible and is a conflation with the separate Seaboard Air Line (SAL) depot. The SAL passenger depot (built 1926 on Museum Avenue) survived and was given to the Old Settlers Association in January 1979, opening as a museum in 1981. This transition of the Seaboard depot into a museum in the late 1970s and early 1980s routinely causes secondary sources to misdate the destruction of the Coast Line depot.

The primary and contemporary proof is Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell’s 1976 book. A book published in 1976 cannot record an event that happened in the early 1980s. Maxwell explicitly documents the 1970 clearing of the Block 55 site—including the wooden Coast Line depot and the adjacent former Maxcy citrus packing plant—for the construction of the First National Bank of Avon Park motor bank and parking lot.

Furthermore, the 1970 demolition aligns perfectly with the corporate history of the railways. The Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line merged on 1 July 1967 to form the Seaboard Coast Line (SCL). Following this merger, agency operations in Avon Park were consolidated under agent James N. McDugald at the newer, masonry Seaboard passenger depot, rendering the aging 1912 wooden Coast Line structure redundant.

Photographic Record

Avon Park Atlantic Coast Line Railroad depot, built around 1912. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory Project via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. [florida-memory-acl-depot]

References

• maxwell-1976 — Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell. The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida. 1976. the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md
• 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
• florida-memory-acl-depot — State Archives of Florida. Avon Park Atlantic Coast Line Railroad depot. 1912. avon-park-acl-depot-1912.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

public-domain

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