Avon Park’s Town Lots and the Everglades Drainage Tax of 1905
Summary
In the autumn of 1905 Avon Park found itself, on paper, part of the Everglades. The legislature that spring had passed an act for the drainage of the Everglades and laid a tax of five cents an acre on the lands in the territory to be drained, and that territory reached DeSoto County and Avon Park’s township. On 13 October 1905 The De Soto County News reported under the headline “Nearly $50,000 for Drainage Tax” that the county’s share for the coming year was $49,315.50, that “Avon Park township is in the drainage district, and here the assessment has been made on each lot, without regard to acreage,” and that the levy would “probably be subject of a bitter legal fight.”[dsc-1905-10-13]
What the paper reported
The front-page report of 13 October 1905. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain.[dsc-1905-10-13]
According to the article, under “the act passed at the last session of the legislature, providing for taxation on account of the drainage of the Everglades,” the tax to be paid on that account in DeSoto County for the ensuing year was $49,315.50. Whether it would ever be collected was “an indefinite question”: the owners of the land included in the drainage plan were disposed to resent the burden, and “an interesting legal battle” was expected, “in which the Consolidated Naval Stores Trust will lead the van.” The first ground of attack would be the unconstitutionality of an act “declaring an assessment of five cents an acre on the lands in the territory to be drained”; the second, discrimination, “inasmuch as the assessment shall be made irrespective of land value.”[dsc-1905-10-13]
Then came the sentence that concerned Avon Park. “Avon Park township is in the drainage district, and here the assessment has been made on each lot, without regard to acreage.” If the paper had it right, a town lot of a fraction of an acre had been assessed the same five cents as an acre of saw-grass on the Kissimmee prairie, and every platted lot of the old Florida Development Company townsite was a separate charge.[dsc-1905-10-13]
The paper closed with the county’s ordinary figures for comparison. DeSoto County’s own taxation for the ensuing year would be more than $86,000, which with the drainage levy made “the total nearly $137,000.” The county’s real estate was valued at $2,482,140, its railroad and telegraph property at $448,961 and its personal property at $786,110, a total of $3,667,217, on which the general levy was 26 mills.[dsc-1905-10-13] On the paper’s figures the drainage tax alone was more than half again the county’s whole ordinary levy.
Related
- The Original Town Plat, the Land Title, and the Shape of Avon Park
- Florida Development Company
- Abbie R. Dodge
References
- dsc-1905-10-13 — The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla. The De Soto County News, 13 October 1905, page 1: Nearly $50,000 for Drainage Tax; Assessment of DeSoto County for Drainage Tax Will Probably Be Subject of a Bitter Legal Fight. 13 October 1905. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn95026908/1905-10-13/ed-1/?sp=1
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, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 13 October 1905, page 1: Nearly $50,000 for Drainage Tax; Assessment of DeSoto County for Drainage Tax Will Probably Be Subject of a Bitter Legal Fight (1905) · newspaper
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