The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
Menu
Admin Sign-In

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Station Agents in Avon Park (1912–1968)

When the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) extended its Haines City Branch south to Sebring in calendar 1912, it ended twenty-six years of overland isolation for Avon Park. For the next fifty-six years, until the corporate consolidation following the 1967 Seaboard Coast Line merger, the Atlantic Coast Line operated a passenger and freight depot on Block 55 at North Michigan Avenue and Church Street.[maxwell-1976][sanborn-1920-sheet4]

Depot operations spanned three primary station agents whose successive tenures encompassed the pioneer arrival of the rails, the Florida land boom, the agricultural shipping expansion, and the post-merger integration with the Seaboard system: Archibald Evander Conoley (1912–1920s), Clayton A. Denmark (1920s–1950s), and James N. McDugald (1957–1968).[maxwell-1976]

The Block 55 Depot Plant and Railroad Living Quarters

The physical layout of the Atlantic Coast Line facilities is documented in detail on Sheet 4 of the November 1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, which surveyed Block 55 bounded by North Michigan Avenue on the west, West Main Street on the south, Church Street on the north, and the main railroad tracks on the east.[sanborn-1920-sheet4]

       +-------------------------------------------------------------+
       |                        CHURCH STREET                        |
       +-------------------------------------------------------------+
       |                                                             |
       |  +--------------------+             +--------------------+  |
       |  |   A.C.L. DWELLING  |             |  "SECTION HO."     |  |
       |  |  (Section Foreman) |             |  (Tools/Motor Car) |  |
       |  +--------------------+             +--------------------+  |
N.     |                                     | Elevated Platform  |  |  T
M      |  +--------------------+             +--------------------+  |  R
I      |  |   A.C.L. DWELLING  |             |                    |  |  A
C      |  |   (Station Agent)  |             |   FREIGHT ROOM     |  |  C
H      |  +--------------------+             |   (North 2/3)      |  |  K
I      |                                     |                    |  |  S
G      |  +--------------------+             +===[Bay Window]=====+  |
A      |  |   A.C.L. DWELLING  |             |  PASSENGER WAITING |  |  (to
N      |  |   (Railroad Crew)  |             |  (South 1/3)       |  |  Sebring)
       |  +--------------------+             +--------------------+  |
A      |                                                             |
V      |                       A. C. L. R. R.                        |
E.     |                          PROPERTY                           |
       +-------------------------------------------------------------+
       |                       WEST MAIN STREET                      |
       +-------------------------------------------------------------+
  1. Combination Depot Building: The station was a long, single-story wood-frame rectangular structure oriented north-south parallel to the tracks. The southern one-third fronting West Main Street served as the passenger waiting room, fitted with a projecting trackside bay window housing the agent-telegrapher’s desk and train-order board. The northern two-thirds of the structure served as the freight and baggage warehouse, terminating in an open raised wooden loading dock that extended northward toward Church Street for transfer of citrus, crated vegetables, fertilizer, and merchandise.[sanborn-1920-sheet4]
  2. Section House: Immediately north of the freight platform stood an independent wood-frame building labeled “SECTION HO.” This building housed track maintenance handcars, motor cars, spare rail hardware, cross-ties, and ballast equipment under the direction of the railroad’s section foreman.[maxwell-1976][sanborn-1920-sheet4]
  3. Company Living Quarters: Unlike secondary flag stops, Avon Park was an operating depot requiring on-site supervision for night freight meets, telegraphic orders, and citrus siding clearances. The western half of Block 55 fronting North Michigan Avenue (Lots 338–342) was recorded as dedicated “A. C. L. R. R. PROPERTY.” It contained three substantial one-story wood-frame company dwellings, each featuring a full-width covered front veranda and detached automobile garage.[sanborn-1920-sheet4] These company houses provided direct residential quarters for the station agent, the section foreman, and their families, placing the operating crew directly across from the depot tracks.[maxwell-1976][sanborn-1920-sheet4]

Archibald Evander Conoley: The Pioneer Agency (1912–1920s)

When the Atlantic Coast Line opened its new station in 1912, the company dispatched Archibald Evander Conoley as Avon Park’s inaugural station agent.[maxwell-1976]

Born in Robeson County, North Carolina, on 15 July 1879, Conoley had trained in commercial telegraphy and railroad operations in the Carolinas before joining the Coast Line’s southern expansion in Florida.[fg-conoley] He moved to Avon Park with his wife, Berta Cade Conoley (1886–1974), and their young children, Rudolph E. Conoley (1907–1989) and Myrtle P. Conoley (1911–2005; later Mrs. Frank Malcolm Gager).[maxwell-1976][fg-berta-conoley]

Conoley operated the depot in conjunction with track foreman Lewis Marion Marsh, who managed the section gang responsible for maintaining the newly laid roadbed through the sand ridges, and W. D. Cameron, who commanded the floating extra work gang.[maxwell-1976]

During Conoley’s tenure, service on the branch began as an arduous, all-day run:

  • Trains ran from Haines City south to Sebring, turning on wyes constructed at both terminal points.[maxwell-1976]
  • The initial mixed trains operated with wood-burning steam locomotives. Pioneer passengers recalled instances where the engineer stopped the train in the pine flatwoods between Frostproof and Avon Park so the fireman and crew could chop cordwood to maintain boiler pressure.[maxwell-1976]
  • Passengers arriving from northern points connected at Haines City, while outgoing passengers bought tickets and arranged baggage transfers through Conoley’s office.
  • Conoley supervised the transition from a remote outpost receiving two trains a week to a bustling agricultural railhead receiving daily passenger trains, fertilizer shipments, and heavy citrus traffic as local packing houses lined the industrial spurs along the right-of-way.[maxwell-1976]

The Conoley family became permanent fixtures of the civic community. Both Archibald (who died on 18 January 1960 at age eighty) and Berta are buried in Bougainvillea Cemetery.[fg-conoley][fg-berta-conoley]

Clayton A. Denmark: Mid-Century Boom and Industrial Shipping (1920s–1950s)

During the expansion of the Florida land boom in the early 1920s, Clayton A. Denmark assumed the role of Atlantic Coast Line station agent in Avon Park.[maxwell-1976]

Born in Taylor County, Florida, on 18 December 1883, Denmark graduated from Taylor County High School in Perry in 1904 and entered commercial railroad telegraphy.[fg-denmark-marker] Prior to his transfer to Avon Park, Denmark served as the Coast Line agent in Waverly, a citrus-packing center along the Haines City Branch in eastern Polk County.[maxwell-1976]

Denmark’s tenure in Avon Park spanned more than a quarter-century, carrying the depot through dramatic economic shifts:

  1. The 1920s Land Boom: Managing massive incoming shipments of dimensional lumber, cement, brick, and hardware required to construct downtown commercial blocks, the Hotel Jacaranda, and surrounding residential subdivisions.
  2. The 1925 Embargo: Enforcing the statewide freight embargoes instituted when rail lines into South Florida became overwhelmed with construction traffic.
  3. Citrus and Vegetable Logistics: Directing the placement of refrigerated cars (reefers) on the long industrial sidings serving the adjacent Maxcy packing plant, the Avon Park Citrus Growers Association, and the Lake Byrd Packing Company.
  4. Telegraphic Communications: Overseeing commercial Western Union wire traffic, train orders, and passenger dispatching.

Federal and state population censuses document Denmark’s continuous residence in Avon Park as railroad station agent through 1930, 1935, 1940, 1945, and 1950.[us-census-1930-denmark][fl-census-1935-denmark] He resided in Avon Park at 1027 West Pine Street with his wife, Lula Inez Kelly Denmark (ca. 1884/86–1952), whom he married in Bristol, Liberty County, Florida on 21 December 1919, their daughters Winifred J. Denmark (Wendt) and Patricia Ann Denmark (Curry), and granddaughter Margaret A. Wendt. Following his wife’s death on 10 December 1952, Denmark remained in the community into retirement, living to age ninety-eight until his death on 29 November 1982. Both are interred in Bougainvillea Cemetery.[fg-denmark-marker][fg-lulah-denmark]

James N. McDugald: The 1967 Merger Seniority Contest and Depot Demolition

In 1957, James N. (“Jim”) McDugald was appointed Atlantic Coast Line station agent in Avon Park.[maxwell-1976][legacy-ida-mcdugald] McDugald was a veteran railroader and telegrapher on the Haines City Branch who had previously served at the Lake Hamilton and Dundee depots in Polk County.

He relocated to Avon Park with his wife, Ida Lillian (Lawson) McDugald (1914–2009), daughter of pioneer Swedish citrus growers August and Anna Sofia Lawson of Lake Hamilton, and their four children: Tom, Dugald Alex, Marilyn, and Marcia.[legacy-ida-mcdugald] The family quickly integrated into local civic affairs, becoming charter members upon the organization of the First Presbyterian Church of Avon Park on 4 February 1962.[maxwell-1976][legacy-ida-mcdugald]

McDugald held the agency during the defining corporate transition of twentieth-century Florida railroading: the 1 July 1967 merger between the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, which created the consolidated Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (SCL).[maxwell-1976]

The Merger Seniority Contest

At the time of the merger in July 1967, two separate railroad agencies operated simultaneously in Avon Park:

  • Jim McDugald operated the Atlantic Coast Line wood-frame depot on Michigan Avenue.
  • Raymond K. Cook operated the Seaboard Air Line Mediterranean Revival passenger depot on Museum Avenue (having succeeded longtime Seaboard agents A. O. Kinsey and J. L. R. Kelly).[maxwell-1976]

The consolidation of the two competing systems required a single unified station agency in Avon Park. Under national railroad union agreements and company seniority rosters, agency appointments were governed strictly by date of service. Because McDugald possessed longer continuous seniority with the Atlantic Coast Line than Cook held with the Seaboard Air Line, railroad custom awarded the consolidated Avon Park agency appointment to McDugald.[maxwell-1976]

Depot Closure and 1970 Demolition

With the agencies consolidated under McDugald, the Seaboard Coast Line concentrated all remaining ticket sales, passenger boarding, and freight manifests at the larger, modern 1926 Seaboard passenger station on Museum Avenue.[maxwell-1976]

The 1912 wooden Coast Line depot on Block 55 was decommissioned and removed:

  • In 1970, the Atlantic Coast Line station was torn down.[maxwell-1976]
  • Demolition of the depot, along with the adjacent former Maxcy citrus packing plant, cleared the Block 55 parcel for commercial redevelopment, specifically the drive-in motor banking facility and parking lot of the First National Bank of Avon Park.[maxwell-1976] (Subsequent regional architectural surveys conducted in the late twentieth century casually reported the demolition as occurring in the “early 1980s,” but the Historical Society’s centennial record confirms the building was razed in 1970).[maxwell-1976]

Jim McDugald continued serving as the consolidated Seaboard Coast Line station agent at the Museum Avenue depot until the railroad formally discontinued local station agency stops in Avon Park during the late 1970s.[maxwell-1976] Following agency discontinuance, the Seaboard passenger depot was deeded to the City of Avon Park on 4 January 1979 to house the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum.[maxwell-1976] McDugald died in 1980, having presided over the final chapter of commercial station agency in Avon Park.[maxwell-1976][legacy-ida-mcdugald]

References

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

  1. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (Held at the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida) (1976) · book
  2. Sanborn Map Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Avon Park, Highlands County, Florida, November 1920, Sheet 4 (1920) · archival
  3. Find a Grave contributors, Archibald Evander Conoley (1879–1960), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 23246109 (2007) · secondary
  4. Find a Grave contributors, Berta Cade Conoley (1886–1974), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 26474438 (2008) · secondary
  5. Find a Grave contributors, Clayton A. Denmark (18 Dec 1883 - 29 Nov 1982), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 35726262, photographed by Grace Younglove Hudson (2009) · secondary
  6. Find a Grave contributors, Lulah Inez Denmark (d. 1952), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 35726077, photographed by Grace Younglove Hudson (2009) · secondary
  7. United States Bureau of the Census, 1930 United States Federal Census, Highlands County, Florida, Enumeration District 28-1, Sheet 6B (1930) · official
  8. Florida Department of Agriculture, 1935 Florida State Census, Highlands County, Avon Park Precinct 1, line 31 (1935) · official
  9. Stephenson-Nelson Funeral Home, Obituary of Ida Lillian Lawson McDugald (1914–2009), The Ledger / Stephenson-Nelson Funeral Home (2009) · newspaper

Something here wrong, or incomplete? The Society would rather know. Tell a volunteer.

Have a question about this record?

← Back to collection

Ask A.P.

Ask the archive

    Try asking:

    0 / 500

    A.P. answers only from the Society's own archive and cites what it used. Questions are not linked to you; search history is stored on your device only (how it works).Ask a volunteer for anything it cannot answer.