The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The Avon Park Special Tax School District Petition of 1906

Summary

Florida let the patrons of a school tax themselves for it: a community that voted itself a “special tax school district” could levy on its own property for its own school, and Avon Park’s district was No. 3 in DeSoto County. In the first week of February 1906 the board received, and The De Soto County News at Arcadia printed, a petition from thirty-one “patrons and citizens” of that district asking for an election to push its boundaries out to the Kissimmee River.[dsc-1906-02-02] The notice ran on the front page on 2 February and was repeated in the following three weekly issues and again on 2 March.[dsc-1906-02-02][dsc-1906-repeats] Its value now is less the boundary than the list of names beneath it: the men who, in the winter of 1906, had children in the Avon Park school or property to be taxed for it.

The notice

Petition to extend the Avon Park Special Tax School District, February 1906

The notice as printed in The De Soto County News, 2 February 1906, page 1. Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain.[dsc-1906-02-02]

The text, as printed, reads:[dsc-1906-02-02]

Notice.

To the Honorable Board of Public Instruction of DeSoto county, Fla.—Gentlemen:

We, the undersigned patrons and citizens of Special Tax School District No. 3, DeSoto county, Fla., do hereby petition your honorable body to call an election within the following described boundaries for the purpose of extending the boundaries of the said district, also known as the Avon Park Special Tax School District, so as to be described as follows: Beginning at the northwest corner of township 33 south, of range 28 east, running thence east to the Kissimmee River, thence in a southerly direction along the line of the river to a point where the said river intersects the south line of township 34, thence west to the southwest corner of township 34 south, of range 28 east, thence north to the place of beginning.

O. R. Thacher, O. P. Wernicke, J. C. Burleigh, Geo. F. Kellogg, E. L. Richardson, R. T. Whitnall, D. L. Sessions, E. E. Thompson, C. W. Pabor, William King, Irvin Raulerson, B. F. West, W. E. Pabor, H. T. Wray, P. L. Wells, C. L. Gunter, Geo. F. Smith, A. Winthrop Sargent, E. T. Boyd, F. S. Prior, M. C. Goodell, Frank Thompson, E. L. Hall, S. J. Brown, W. S. Butler, W. R. Wayman, W. Krause, Barney Blun, Ellis R. West, W. S. Armstrong, S. J. Townsend.

What the boundary meant

The district the petitioners described was enormous: a strip two townships deep, twelve miles from north to south, running from the Polk County line at the top of Township 33 all the way east across the ridge, the prairie and the Arbuckle country to the Kissimmee River, with Avon Park in its northwest corner. Almost nobody lived in most of it, and a boundary drawn so wide would have brought the unsettled land east of the town within reach of the district’s school levy, so that the Avon Park school’s tax base was counted in townships rather than in town lots.[dsc-1906-02-02]

The signers

The thirty-one names are, in effect, a roll of the settlement’s men in 1906. Several are the town’s known figures: O. R. Thacher, who conducted the Avon Park department of the paper in which the notice appeared; J. C. Burleigh, the builder and general merchant; William King, the first postmaster; W. E. Pabor of Pabor Lake; A. Winthrop Sargent, Justice of the Peace for District 14 and builder of Sargent’s Hall; Frank Thompson, pioneer settler; and B. F. West and Ellis R. West, the father and son of B. F. West & Son, feed and general merchants.[dsc-1906-02-02] E. L. Richardson was the schoolmaster, “Prof. E. L. Richardson” in the paper’s columns, the teacher of the very school the district supported.[dsc-1906-05-11] The last name on the list, S. J. Townsend, was the town’s minister: the same issue of the paper reports the Rev. S. J. Townsend officiating at Joseph Bell’s funeral on 25 January 1906.[dsc-1906-02-02-bell] The remaining signers on the roll are O. P. Wernicke, Geo. F. Kellogg, R. T. Whitnall, E. E. Thompson, C. W. Pabor, Irvin Raulerson, D. L. Sessions, H. T. Wray, P. L. Wells, C. L. Gunter, E. T. Boyd, W. Krause, Geo. F. Smith, F. S. Prior, M. C. Goodell, E. L. Hall, S. J. Brown, W. S. Butler, W. R. Wayman, Barney Blun, and W. S. Armstrong.[dsc-1906-02-02] Whether the board called the election, and whether it carried, the surviving issues of the paper do not record.

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 De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 2 February 1906, page 1: Notice, petition of the patrons and citizens of Special Tax School District No. 3 (Avon Park) (1906) · newspaper
  2. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 2 February 1906, page 4: Joseph Bell Is Dead, Department of The South Florida Sun (1906) · newspaper
  3. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 11 May 1906, page 8: Avon Park Locals, Prof. E. L. Richardson (1906) · newspaper
  4. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 9 February 1906, page 6; 16 February 1906, page 4; and 2 March 1906, page 7: the same notice repeated (1906) · newspaper

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