The Avon Park Cemetery Association was at work by March 1906
The Avon Park department of the Arcadia paper, conducted by O. R. Thacher, carried this item on 23 March 1906:
Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Butler, we hear, gave a good second-hand pump and well tubing to the Avon Park Cemetery Association, that a well may be driven in the cemetery to supply water for trees, shrubs and flowers planted there. A much needed improvement.[dscn-1906-03-23]
It is the earliest mention found of the Association, and it shows the cemetery in 1906 as a planted ground with an organized body responsible for it, eighteen years after the first burial and while Crosby, who had laid the ground out and given it to the town, was living in the North.[maxwell-1976] The same column had reported a burial there two months earlier: a funeral at the late home of the deceased on 25 January, the Rev. S. J. Townsend officiating, “and the interment was in the Avon Park cemetery,” attended by nearly the whole town.[dscn-1906-02-02] The name Bougainvillea does not appear in either item.
The Association survives. An Avon Park Cemetery Association with a post-office box in the town has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt cemetery company since November 1991, and its returns show it running the cemetery with a paid president and groundskeeper.[propublica-assoc] Whether the body of 1906 was incorporated, and how the ground passed from the town Crosby gave it to into the Association’s hands, no source found records.
Related
References
- dscn-1906-03-23 — The De Soto County News. Avon Park department, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 23 March 1906, page 8. 23 March 1906. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95026908/1906-03-23/ed-1/?sp=8
- dscn-1906-02-02 — The De Soto County News. Avon Park department, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 2 February 1906, page 4. 2 February 1906. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95026908/1906-02-02/ed-1/?sp=4
- propublica-assoc — ProPublica, from Internal Revenue Service filings. Avon Park Cemetary Association, EIN 59-0751585, Nonprofit Explorer. 30 April 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/590751585
- 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
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
- The De Soto County News, Avon Park department, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 23 March 1906, page 8 (1906) · newspaper
- The De Soto County News, Avon Park department, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 2 February 1906, page 4 (1906) · newspaper
- ProPublica, from Internal Revenue Service filings, Avon Park Cemetary Association, EIN 59-0751585, Nonprofit Explorer (2026) · official
- 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
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