The original Avon Park city ordinance book is missing from the public record
The land boom at Avon Park in the 1920s was characterized by massive municipal borrowing, but the primary local laws that authorized it — the city’s own ordinances — are entirely missing from accessible public records and legislative databases.
Two specific ordinances are known to have existed only because the Florida Legislature and the courts cited them when validating the town’s actions:
- Ordinance No. 85 (passed 22 December 1924), which authorized $18,000 in street improvement bonds.
- Ordinance No. 110 (passed 9 June 1926), which authorized $355,000 for sewers, a city hall, and park improvements.
Although the state legislature passed Special Acts in 1925 and 1927 to validate these bond issues, the text of the ordinances themselves cannot be located.
The 1928 Florida Supreme Court case State v. City of Avon Park (96 Fla. 494) confirmed that the city’s bond issuances had to follow its specific charter (Chapter 12514, Acts of 1927) rather than general state law. The case establishes the legal context of the era: Florida municipalities frequently leaned on the state legislature to ratify local improvement projects through validating acts.
But the original city ordinance book from this era has not survived in any publicly available digital archive. This means the exact text drafted by the Avon Park City Council during its period of most aggressive expansion is unavailable, leaving researchers to reconstruct the town’s legislative intent entirely from the state-level validations that followed.
References
- lof-1925-10321 — Legislature of the State of Florida. Chapter 10321 (No. 299), Laws of Florida 1925: validating the Avon Park bond election of 3 April 1925. 1925. http://edocs.dlis.state.fl.us/fldocs/leg/actsflorida/1925/LOF1925V2Pt1title-ch10461.pdf
- lof-1927-12513 — Legislature of the State of Florida. Chapter 12513 (No. 708), Laws of Florida 1927: validating Ordinance No. 110 and the Avon Park bond election of 20 July 1926. 23 May 1927. http://edocs.dlis.state.fl.us/fldocs/leg/actsflorida/1927/1927V2Pt1SpecLawsPt1.pdf
- fsc-state-v-avon-park-1928 — Supreme Court of Florida. State v. City of Avon Park, 96 Fla. 494, 118 So. 223. 12 October 1928. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3394879/state-v-city-of-avon-park/
Related
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
- Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 10321 (No. 299), Laws of Florida 1925: validating the Avon Park bond election of 3 April 1925 (1925)
- Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 12513 (No. 708), Laws of Florida 1927: validating Ordinance No. 110 and the Avon Park bond election of 20 July 1926 (1927)
- Supreme Court of Florida, State v. City of Avon Park, 96 Fla. 494, 118 So. 223 (1928)
Something here wrong, or incomplete? The Society would rather know. Tell a volunteer.
Have a question about this record?