The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Avon Park was incorporated by Chapter 6662, Laws of Florida, approved 23 May 1913

Three incorporation dates have circulated for Avon Park — 1886 as “Lake Forest,” 1913 as the Town of Avon Park, and 1926 as the City of Avon Park — and no chapter number had been found for any of them.

The 1913 act is a special charter, and it is not the town’s first municipal government. Avon Park had incorporated once already, under Florida’s general law, in the first week of January 1897, and elected Clark D. Knapp mayor; see Avon Park incorporated in January 1897.[savannah-1897-01-15] The charter of 1913 recites nothing of that earlier government and repeals nothing, and there was nothing to repeal: the town had voted its first government out of existence at an election on 1 March 1899, and had none for the fourteen years afterwards.[savannah-1899-03-09]

The chapter and date of the 1913 act are settled. Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913, a special act of the Florida legislature:

“AN ACT to Establish and Constitute a Municipality in DeSoto County, Florida, To Be Known and Designated as the Town of Avon Park, and to Define Its Territorial Boundaries, and to Provide for Its Jurisdiction, Powers and Privileges.”

Approved by the Governor on 23 May 1913, effective at once.[lof-1913-6662]

The town was a square. A mile and a half on each side, two and a quarter square miles, laid out by section corners in Township 33 South, Range 28 East, centered on Section 22 — the section holding the original townsite.

The first government is named in the act itself, to serve until the regular election later in 1913:

Office Name
Mayor Herbert Seaverns
Marshal Irvin Raulerson
Assessor S. F. Tucker
Clerk and Assessor Ellis R. West
Tax Collector C. E. Lanier
Aldermen W. O. Skipper, Wm. King, G. F. Kellogg, W. H. Daugherty, H. E. Godwin

The King line matters. “Wm. King” is almost certainly William A. King, whom the Pabor Lake Pineapple called “the first settler of Avon Park” in August 1893.[pineapple-1893] Until now his public career rested on a family tradition, repeated on genealogy sites, that he served as a county commissioner and nearly two terms as mayor. This is a statute with his name in it. He was an alderman of Avon Park from the day the town existed.

And the 1886 date can be set aside. A place is not incorporated twice, and no charter for a town of Lake Forest or Avon Park appears anywhere in the Florida session laws of the 1880s, which have been searched volume by volume. The 1886 date belongs to the founding of the settlement, not to any act of incorporation.

The officer list, settled. Section 5 of the same act names the town’s offices as “Clerk, Assessor, Treasurer, Marshal, Collector” and Town Council, and an earlier reading of this finding suspected that the poorly printed scan had turned a “Clerk and Treasurer” into a “Clerk and Assessor.” It had not. The page was rendered from the volume at 300 dots per inch and read directly on 2 September 2026, and it prints, cleanly and without ambiguity:

Sec. 47. The officers of the said town of Avon Park shall be Herbert Seaverns, Mayor; Irvin Raulerson, Marshal; S. F. Tucker, Assessor; Ellis R. West, Clerk and Assessor; C. E. Lanier, Tax Collector; and W. O. Skipper, Wm. King, G. F. Kellogg, W. H. Daugherty and H. E. Godwin, Aldermen; which said officers shall hold their office until the regular election in 1913, or until their successors are elected and qualified.[lof-1913-6662]

So the act really does appoint two assessors and no treasurer. It is an error in the enrolled bill, not in the printing — the sort of thing the Secretary of State’s certificate to these volumes routinely warns of. The same reading corrects three names this project had from the OCR: the clerk is Ellis R. West, not Ellis B.; the alderman is W. H. Daugherty, not W. E.; and the fifth alderman is H. E. Godwin, not A. D. And the act was approved 23 May 1913, not 28 May.

The nine are now mostly people. Herbert Seaverns was a Boston-born hardware merchant (1854-1946); Ellis R. West the English-born son of the storekeeper B. F. West (1877-1957); Irvin Raulerson very probably the Irving Raulerson of 1861-1920; Godwin a cattleman, Daugherty a freight-driver, Kellogg a future president of the Scenic Highlands boards of trade; Lanier the Charles Everett Lanier who sat in the Legislature in the 1940s. See Report: Who governed Avon Park.

The charter was amended, twice over, before the town became a city. The State Library’s copy of the 1913 volume carries a pencilled cross-reference in the margin beside Chapter 6662 — “Ch. 6662 (1913) Additional powers. Ch. 7131 (1915)” — and Chapter 7131 exists. It is Chapter 7131 (No. 325), Laws of Florida 1915, approved 19 May 1915, “An Act Granting Additional Rights, Powers and Privileges to the Town of Avon Park, DeSoto County, Florida … and Ratifying the Present Assessment of Taxes in Said Town.”[lof-1915-7131] Its section 15 says plainly that its intention “is to supplement the powers of the Town of Avon Park, as provided for by Chapter 6662 of the Laws of Florida, of the Acts of 1913.” Its section 13 retrospectively ratifies every tax assessment, every license and every ordinance the Town Council had made in its first two years — which tells us the town had been governing, taxing and licensing since 1913 on a footing somebody thought shaky. And its section 14 hands the town’s electors the power to amend their own charter by referendum, on a proposal originating with the Town Council, with thirty days’ notice “published in a newspaper, published in the Town of Avon Park … or in case no newspaper is published in said Town, by posting said notice in five (5) public places.”[lof-1915-7131]

What is still open. Any further amendments between 1915 and 1925. The city charter is not open: it is Chapter 10320, Laws of Florida 1925, approved 8 June 1925 and effective 1 January 1926, and it was re-enacted again as Chapter 12514 of 1927 — whose Chapter 12515 finally repealed Chapter 6662 “and all amendments thereto,” Chapter 7131 among them.

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. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 9 March 1899, page 6: the election at Avon Park on whether the municipal government should continue (1899) · newspaper
  2. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 15 January 1897, page 6, Florida column: the incorporation of Avon Park and the election of its officers (1897) · newspaper
  3. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913, Volume 2 Part 1, Special Laws (1913)
  4. Legislature of the State of Florida, Chapter 7131 (No. 325), Laws of Florida 1915, Volume 2, Special Laws: An Act Granting Additional Rights, Powers and Privileges to the Town of Avon Park, DeSoto County, Florida (1915)
  5. W. E. Pabor, Pabor Lake Pineapple, 15 August 1893: William King, first settler of Avon Park (1893)

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