The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Regional newspaper correspondence and the Avon Park Idea, 1890–1918

Prior to the late November 1919 founding of the Highlands County Pilot, journalism in Avon Park operated through three interconnected mechanisms: local weekly newspapers established by pioneer printers, standing local departments in neighboring county seats, and regular town correspondence published in regional newspapers across Polk and DeSoto counties.[fla-ag-1890-12-24][gaz-1895][gaz-1918][maxwell-1976]

The Bartow and Arcadia Press Pipelines (1890–1899)

Before rail lines entered the interior ridge in 1912, Avon Park maintained overland staging and postal routes northward to Bartow in Polk County and westward to Arcadia, the county seat of DeSoto County (which encompassed Avon Park until 1921):[fla-ag-1890-12-24][fla-ag-1899-07-05]

  • The Bartow Courier-Informant: In December 1890, the Courier-Informant reported on town founder Oliver M. Crosby’s winter immigration excursions, noting that he had brought down sixty northern settlers and had organized semi-monthly excursion trains from New York.[fla-ag-1890-12-24] In December 1895, the Courier-Informant provided the definitive contemporary account of the 4 December 1895 schoolhouse fire, detailing the loss of the Episcopal mission’s liturgical property and the $1,200 bond authorization by school trustees.[fla-ag-1895-12-18] In December 1897, the paper’s regular Avon Park correspondent chronicled the establishment of Miss Law’s Indiana Pinery on Lake Carter alongside the Bamboo, Holley Hill, and Oak Hill pineries.[fla-ag-1897-12-01]
  • The Arcadia News: As the official gazette of the county seat, the Arcadia News retained a dedicated “Avon Park correspondent” throughout the 1890s. In late June 1899, this correspondent dispatched the first public report of the opening of an ancient Indigenous burial mound east of Avon Park by local residents.[fla-ag-1899-07-05]

The Avon Park Idea (1894–1898)

In the autumn of 1894, A. L. Blue and his son from New York established The Avon Park Idea, succeeding Crosby’s promotional monthly The Florida Homeseeker.[gaz-1895][maxwell-1976] The publication was listed under Blue’s name in the 1895 Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory and operated with a steam-driven printing press located adjacent to the Hotel Verona.[gaz-1895][maxwell-1976]

Following Blue’s return North, management transferred to Gonzales of Fort Myers and Arthur Sargent, who operated the paper through the severe post-freeze depression. The succession happened in the spring of 1895, not after 1898: the Savannah Morning News of 31 May 1895 reports that “A. L. Blue has retired from the editorship of the Avon Park Idea. J. A. Gonzales succeeds Blue.”[savannah-1895-05-31] The Pabor Lake Pineapple of March 1897 then reports the paper “now owned, edited and published by E. Gonzales, who has been connected with it since it was established by the Avon Park Town Co., to boom the town.”[plp-1897-03] His initials are given three ways across the sources — J. A., E., and the A. L. of the town history — and none is corroborated. The paper ran on past 1898; its plant was sold to Orlando buyers about December 1900.[maxwell-1976] During its four-year run, The Avon Park Idea was extensively quoted throughout the Florida exchange press:

  1. Agricultural Innovation: Reporting in May–June 1895 on C. J. Williams’s success growing half-bushel-sized heads of tender lettuce on upland sand hills near Lake Pioneer, demonstrating that ridge sands could produce high-grade truck crops without muck soils.
  2. Cattle Industry Logistics: Recording in June 1895 that Judge Ziba King ran over 60,000 head of range cattle across the region, with trail crews driving 200 to 300 head of beef cattle through Avon Park every week destined for the Tampa and Jacksonville markets.
  3. Pioneer Horticulture: Documenting in 1896 the commercial operations of John T. Hendricks’s model acre on Pleasant Street (pineapples, guavas, and figs), G. I. Russell’s dual commercial pineries shipping cartloads of slips across the state, and A. M. Quinn’s $5,000 orange grove sale.
  4. Civic Campaigns: Editorially advocating in July 1896 for legislation requiring all county legal notices to be published in local newspapers rather than nailed to “three prominent palmetto trees,” and promoting the construction of fruit and vegetable canning factories to process surplus agricultural yields.

The Avon Park Press and the Zolfo Springs Publishing Company (1915–1919)

Following the cessation of O. R. Thacher’s The South Florida Sun around 1912, local weekly journalism resumed in November 1915 with The Avon Park Press, founded by veteran printer Peter Augustus (“Pete”) Ruhl.[gaz-1918] Following Ruhl’s departure in April 1916 to manage The Sebring White Way, the newspaper continued under the Zolfo Springs Publishing Company (managed by Stuart Hancock) through late summer 1919, contract-printed in Zolfo Springs in western DeSoto (later Hardee) County while circulating locally in Avon Park.[gaz-1918]

This arrangement mirrored O. R. Thacher’s earlier contract printing with The De Soto County News in Arcadia, sustaining weekly municipal and commercial coverage until George W. Adams established the town’s independent Highlands County Pilot in late November 1919.[gaz-1918][maxwell-1976] See The Avon Park Press, Pete Ruhl, and the Zolfo Publishing Company (1915–1919) and Peter Augustus Ruhl.

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. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 31 May 1895, page 6: A. L. Blue retires from the editorship of the Avon Park Idea (1895) · newspaper
  2. W. E. Pabor, editor and publisher, The Pabor Lake Pineapple, March 1897, page 4: the Avon Park Idea now owned, edited and published by E. Gonzales (references/pabor-lake-pineapple.md) (1897) · newspaper
  3. The Florida Agriculturist / Bartow Courier-Informant, The Florida Agriculturist, 24 December 1890, page 15 (reprinting Bartow Courier-Informant) (1890)
  4. The Florida Agriculturist / Bartow Courier-Informant, The Florida Agriculturist, 18 December 1895, page 15 (reprinting Bartow Courier-Informant on school fire) (1895)
  5. The Florida Agriculturist / Bartow Courier-Informant, The Florida Agriculturist, 1 December 1897, page 13 (Avon Park cor. Bartow Courier-Informant) (1897)
  6. The Florida Agriculturist / Arcadia News, The Florida Agriculturist, 5 July 1899, page 5 (Avon Park cor. Arcadia News) (1899)
  7. Belden Publishing Company, Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory, 1895, s.v. Avon Park (1895)
  8. R. L. Polk & Co., Florida State Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1918, s.v. Avon Park (1918)
  9. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (Held at the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida) (1976)

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