The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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A 1941 road act maps the Avon Park countryside by its landmarks

Chapter 20297, Laws of Florida 1941 designated a comprehensive system of existing Highlands County roads as official state roads. Because rural routes outside municipal boundaries lacked formal survey names, the Florida Legislature described each right-of-way by its physical starting points, intersections, and destinations—producing a detailed, dated gazetteer of the rural countryside surrounding Avon Park in the spring of 1941.[lof-1941-20297]

Named arterial and legacy roads

The statutory descriptions demonstrate that by 1941, the road network surrounding Avon Park had undergone multiple generations of realignment:

  • The Old Avon Park-Sebring Road: “beginning at Sloughter’s filling station on Road 8; thence South 3 miles to a sharp curve in road; thence East to A.C.L. Railroad; thence along said A.C.L. Railroad about 1½ miles … thence East about 1¾ miles to State Road No. 8.”
  • The Old Avon Park-Frostproof Road and the old original Avon Park-Frostproof road: “beginning on State Road Number 32; thence North 2 miles to Polk County line; thence East and South of County line 2 miles to Oak Island Groves.”
  • The Avon Park-Kissimmee River State Road: the primary eastward route connecting the Lake Wales Ridge to the cattle ranges and the Kissimmee River valley.

Landmark gazetteer of the 1941 countryside

Landmark in Act Historical Identity and Location
Highlands Lake subdivision 1920s platted subdivision north of Avon Park on State Road 8 (US 27), recorded as “containing about 12 miles of presently traveled clayed and hard surfaced roads.”[lof-1941-20297]
Highlands Lake Hotel Resort complex on State Road 8 north of town (designed by William J. Heim), converted in 1941 to cadet barracks for Lodwick Aviation Military Academy and later the site of Walker Memorial Hospital; connected by a ¾-mile road east to Lake Damon and north to the Polk County line.[lof-1941-20297]
Glanacla subdivision Boom-era residential plat on the Old Avon Park–Sebring Road south of town, “containing about 6 miles of clayed roads.”[lof-1941-20297]
Deer Lake and clay pit Karst solution lake east of town with an adjacent municipal/county clay extraction pit used for surfacing ridge roads, at the terminus of a road out of Section 11.[lof-1941-20297]
E. G. Todd Grove and Buzzard’s Bay Commercial citrus holdings of downtown merchant and grower Edward G. Todd situated along State Road 8, with a spur running to the natural wetland basin of Buzzard’s Bay.[lof-1941-20297]
Avon Park Air Port The municipal airfield established along State Road 32 (now SR 64) approximately ¾ mile west of its north-west corner, later utilized for Lodwick primary flight training.[lof-1941-20297]
Highlands County Prison Camp on Bonnett Lake The county convict road maintenance camp on Lake Bonnet, reached via a dedicated roadway extending from State Road 8 one mile north of the Seaboard Air Line Railway crossing.[lof-1941-20297]
The Mile Long Mall Defined at its western terminus: “beginning at West end of Mall in Avon Park on State Road Number 8; thence Southward 8½ miles to State Road No. 162.”[lof-1941-20297][nrhp-avon-park-district]
“Bill Boy’s” place Rural trading post and crossroads settlement on State Road 32, approximately 1½ miles west of the junction leading seven miles south-east to Fort Kissimmee.[lof-1941-20297]
Hartt’s Grove and Lakemont crossing Citrus acreage owned by pioneer developer E. W. Hartt at the Township 33/34 South line on State Road 8, adjacent to the Lakemont railroad crossing.[lof-1941-20297]

The Pittsburgh-Florida Company’s 4,000-acre boundaries

Two major county routes were legally surveyed and defined by the boundary fences of the Pittsburgh-Florida Fruit Growers Association:

“beginning in Avon Park on Main Street; thence East for a distance of approximately four and one-fourth of a mile to a pasture fence constructed by Pittsburgh-Florida Co.”[lof-1941-20297]

and

“beginning on State Road Number 8 on Township line between Townships 33 and 34; thence East approximately 1¾ miles to the Pittsburgh-Florida Company’s fence.”[lof-1941-20297]

Organized in 1915 by the Anderson brothers (A. V., C. P., and C. Parke Anderson), the Pittsburgh-Florida Fruit Growers Association established a contiguous corporate agricultural domain of over 4,000 acres stretching eastward from Lake Byrd (site of Lake Byrd Lodge) across the flatwoods.[maxwell-1976] Twenty-six years after its founding, the company’s enclosed pasture and grove perimeter remained the definitive statutory survey benchmark four and a quarter miles east of downtown Avon Park.

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. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 20297, Laws of Florida 1941: Designating State Roads (Highlands County) (1941)
  2. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida, Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, 1976 (references/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976)
  3. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District (reference 90000486) (references/nrhp-avon-park-historic-district-1990.md) (1990)

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