The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The 1905 School Library Grant and the South Forest Avenue Schoolhouse

On 13 October 1905, The De Soto County News recorded that the DeSoto County Board of Public Instruction, during its regular monthly session at Arcadia, granted applications from Avon Park and Oak Hill to establish matching-fund school libraries[dsc-1905-10-13-schools]. Oak Hill represented neighboring DeSoto County School District No. 20 (centered at Bunker, southwest of Avon Park).

The grant served the Avon Park Public School (administered as DeSoto County Special Tax School Sub-District No. 3), then operating in its 1897 two-story frame schoolhouse at South Forest Avenue and West Walnut Street under principal Prof. Erving Leander Richardson[dpi-1904-1906][maxwell-1976].

The Sole Operating School in 1905

In the autumn of 1905, Avon Park maintained only a single public school building. The physical lineage of the town’s classrooms establishes the institutional and physical context of the library grant[maxwell-1976]:

  1. The Little Blue School House (1888–1892): A pioneer one-room frame structure on Midway Street (West Main Street) near West Bell Street, south of Lake Tulane, had been closed by 1893 when residential and business growth shifted toward the Hotel Verona area[maxwell-1976].
  2. The First South Forest Avenue School (1893–1895): A two-story wooden schoolhouse erected at South Forest Avenue and West Walnut Street (adjacent to Block 36) burned to the ground in a catastrophic fire on 4 December 1895, forcing classes into temporary quarters at Sargent’s Hall on North Lake Avenue through October 1897[maxwell-1976].
  3. The Replacement Frame Schoolhouse (1897–1914): Rebuilt on the same South Forest Avenue site, the replacement two-story frame school opened on 4 October 1897 under principal Prof. Erving Leander Richardson, a Dartmouth College alumnus[maxwell-1976]. This structure was the town’s active schoolhouse in October 1905.
  4. Subsequent Campuses: In 1906, mounting enrollment required building a separate frame classroom annex on the Forest Avenue grounds, nicknamed “The Coop”[maxwell-1976]. The district did not relocate until April 1915, when the masonry junior high school on Block 43A fronting South Lake Avenue was completed under a $25,000 bond issue voted in 1913[dpi-1904-1906][maxwell-1976]. Hopewell School, the town’s segregated school for Black children, was not constructed until 1926.

Following the school’s removal to Block 43A in 1915, the 1897 frame building at South Forest Avenue and West Walnut Street was leased to local religious assemblies, including the Church of Christ, which met there until the building was blown off its foundations by the September 1926 hurricane[maxwell-1976]. The congregation salvaged the lumber and erected its permanent chapel at 200 South Forest Avenue.

Arrival and Financing of the Sixty-Volume Collection

The library authorized in October 1905 arrived within four weeks. On 10 November 1905, the Avon Park correspondent to The De Soto County News reported:

“The new school library of sixty volumes is here and every book is covered with a neat and durable heavy manila cover.”[dsc-1905-11-10]

Community fundraisers supplemented the state and county library appropriation. On 9 February 1906, the county paper noted that an entertainment program held for the school yielded modest proceeds: performer Miss Burke received ten dollars above expenses, while “the Avon Park school library has something over four dollars as its share,” supported by musical accompaniments arranged by local educator and musician Miss Grace Townsend[dsc-1906-02-09][dsc-1905-11-10].

The official report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the biennium ending 30 June 1906 corroborates both the library collection and school enrollment: Avon Park reported twenty-eight pupils, a library collection of sixty volumes, and a county school fund apportionment of $80.00[dpi-1904-1906].

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.
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society

Sources

  1. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 13 October 1905, page 17: minutes of the DeSoto County Board of Public Instruction, applications for school libraries (1905) · newspaper
  2. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 10 November 1905, page 5: Avon Park Locals (1905) · newspaper
  3. The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 9 February 1906: Avon Park department and Business Locals (references/de-soto-county-news-avon-park-department.md) (1906) · newspaper
  4. Florida Superintendent of Public Instruction, Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, State of Florida, 1904–1906: DeSoto County tables and teacher certificates (references/florida-superintendent-biennial-reports.md) (1906) · official
  5. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida, pages 69, 116–120, 1598 (references/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976) · book

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