The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Avon Park’s city charter is Chapter 10320 of 1925, and the city itself began on 1 January 1926

Two things about Avon Park’s change from town to city are usually got slightly wrong: which year is being talked about, and the scale.

The act is of 1925; the city began on 1 January 1926. Chapter 10320 (No. 298), Laws of Florida 1925, was approved by the Governor on 8 June 1925. It abolished the Town of Avon Park and created the City of Avon Park in its place — but section 46 of the act sets its own start date: it “shall become effective and operative on the first day of January, 1926,” and only if a majority of the town’s qualified electors approved it at an election the Town Council was directed to hold on the first Tuesday in September 1925. Section 47 then required a December 1925 election for the first city mayor and council, “to assume their [offices] … January A. D. Nineteen [Twenty-six].”[lof-1925-10320]

So both dates in circulation are right about different things, and neither should be given alone. The statute is a 1925 statute; the City of Avon Park is a 1926 municipality. The National Register nomination’s 1926, given alongside the opening of the Hotel Jacaranda, is the date the change took effect, not an error.[nrhp-90000486] It is the chapter number, not the year, that was genuinely missing before this research.

A referendum stood between the act and the city. The 1925 charter act only took effect if approved by a majority of qualified electors at an election on the first Tuesday in September 1925. While local newspaper coverage of the exact vote tally has not been located, the referendum undeniably passed. Two separate Florida Supreme Court cases—State v. City of Avon Park (1928) and State ex rel. Davis v. City of Avon Park (1932)—litigated the thirty-six square mile boundaries established by the 1925 charter and its 1927 successor without either party ever challenging whether the initial 1925 referendum occurred.[sc-1928-bonds][sc-1932-davis] Furthermore, standard historical references uniformly use 1 January 1926 as the city’s incorporation date, which was the contingent effective date written into Chapter 10320. The Hotel Jacaranda, captured in a 1926 postcard, stands as a prime example of the development that the new city boundaries were meant to encompass.

Jacaranda Hotel at 19 E. Main St. in Avon Park, Florida Postcard view of the Jacaranda Hotel, circa 1926. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. [fl-memory-pc07393]

The scale is the striking part. The 1913 town charter drew a square a mile and a half on each side — two and a quarter square miles around Section 22.[lof-1913-6662] The 1925 city charter takes in

“all of Sections One (1) to Thirty-six (36) inclusive”

of Township 33 South, Range 28 East — the entire survey township, thirty-six square miles.[lof-1925-10320]

Why a town of a few thousand people annexed thirty-six square miles. Because in June 1925 nobody in Florida believed it would stay a town of a few thousand people. Between September 1921 and February 1926 forty-one subdivisions were platted at Avon Park, twenty-one of them in 1925 alone.[nrhp-90000486] The city limits were drawn for the town the boom was expected to produce. The boom ended within eighteen months.

The city’s finances tell the same story. In December 1924 the town council authorized $18,000 of street improvement bonds. On 3 April 1925 the town held a special election on issuing $240,000 of improvement bonds and $40,000 of refunding bonds. The legislature validated both in the same run of chapters that granted the city charter.

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
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unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
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Sources

  1. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 10320 (No. 298), Laws of Florida 1925, Special Laws (1925)
  2. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913, Special Laws (1913)
  3. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District (1990)
  4. Supreme Court of Florida, State v. City of Avon Park, 96 Fla. 494, 118 So. 223 (1928)
  5. Supreme Court of Florida, State ex rel. Davis v. City of Avon Park, 139 So. 899 (1932)
  6. The L. L. Cook Company, Jacaranda Hotel at 19 E. Main St. in Avon Park, Florida (1926)

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