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

Avon Park’s city limits had shrunk again by 1943

In 1925 the Town of Avon Park, about 1,440 acres, was abolished and re-created as a city covering the whole of Township 33 South, Range 28 East — thirty-six sections, 23,040 acres, sixteen times its former area.[fla-108-641] The owners of the annexed pasture and grove fought it in the courts from 1932, in a quo warranto brought by the Attorney General and a long list of co-relators, and that case runs through the Florida Reports until December 1934 and then disappears without a reported ending.[fla-108-641]

An unremarkable act of 1943 shows how it came out.

Chapter 22210 (No. 576), House Bill No. 518, became law without the Governor’s approval and was filed with the Secretary of State on 17 May 1943. Its business is to vacate a park. Its opening words are the finding:

Section 1. That certain area, formerly within the city limits of the City of Avon Park, in Highlands County, Florida, but now beyond the corporate limits of said municipality, marked “Park” lying between Lakeside Drive on the north of Lake Lotela on the south, as disclosed by reference to the plat of Lake Lotela Garden Subdivision, as recorded in Plat Book 2, page 51, of the public records of Highlands County, Florida, is hereby vacated and abandoned as a park, and all rights of the public in such area as a park are hereby terminated.[lof-1943-22210]

What it tells us

The boom-time city did not last. Land that was inside Avon Park when the Lake Lotela Garden Subdivision was platted was outside it by 1943. The Legislature states this as settled fact, in passing, in an act about something else — which is the most reliable kind of evidence, because nobody was arguing about it.

It was the 1933 quo warranto judgment. The Florida Supreme Court invalidated the massive 1925 special act in 1933 (State ex rel. Attorney Gen. v. City of Avon Park, 108 Fla. 641, 149 So. 409).[fla-108-641] The court ruled that the annexation, which had expanded the city from 1,440 acres to 23,040 acres, drastically altered municipal boundaries without sufficient connection to the city’s actual needs or the interests of the affected areas. The act of 1943 reflects this settled reality.

Lake Lotela is the place to look. The lake lies at the north-east of the boom-time city limits, and Lakeside Drive runs along its shore. A subdivision platted there with a dedicated public park, and then left stranded outside the city with the park vacated eighteen years later, is a boom-and-bust story in one parcel.

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. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 22210 (No. 576), Laws of Florida 1943 (House Bill No. 518): An Act to Vacate and Abandon as a Park That Certain Area Marked 'Park' Lying Between Lakeside Drive on the North and Lake Lotela on the South (1943)
  2. Supreme Court of Florida (Whitfield, J.), State ex rel. Davis v. City of Avon Park, 108 Fla. 641 (1933) (1933)

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.