The Avon Park Township Horticultural Association and the ridge pineapple industry

Before the commercial ascendancy of citrus monoculture and truck farming in the early twentieth century, Avon Park was the center of an intensive interior pineapple industry. Spanning from the initial experimental plantings of August 1887 through the post-freeze recovery of the late 1890s, the district cultivated approximately 500,000 pineapple plants across 50 to 100 acres of high pine ridge soils and lakefront slopes.[fa-1893-01-11][fa-1897-09-08]

The Avon Park Township Horticultural Association

Founded circa 1892 as an organized technical and mutual-improvement society, the Avon Park Township Horticultural Association brought together the settlement’s leading growers, nurserymen, and land promoters, including William King, William E. Pabor, Oliver M. Crosby, H. G. Burnet, O. R. Thacher, Charles Wilkinson, and George Edmiston. The association functioned as a scientific forum where growers compared empirical data on frost drainage, soil chemistry, organic fertilization, variety yields, and shipping durability.

In late 1892, the association commissioned pioneer settler William King to compile an exhaustive technical report on pineapple cultivation based on his five years of continuous experimental trials. King’s paper was initially published in William E. Pabor’s local journal, the Pabor Lake Pineapple, and subsequently reprinted on the front page of The Florida Agriculturist on 11 January 1893 under the title “Pineapple Culture in DeSoto County.”[fa-1893-01-11] The society’s proceedings demonstrated that early ridge settlers viewed agricultural development through systematic experimentation rather than speculative promotion alone.

William King’s Cultural System and Ridge Soil Economics

King’s 1892 paper established the agronomic foundation for commercial pineapple growing in Township 33 South, Range 28 East:

Ridge Soil Advantages: King demonstrated that Avon Park’s high pine and yellow sand ridge soils did not require the massive applications of bone meal (one to two tons per acre) required on the leached white sands of the Atlantic coastal scrub, dramatically lowering capital establishment costs.
Bedding and Spacing: Plants were set two feet by two feet in beds eight rows wide, leaving paths between beds for harvesting and weeding. A single planting produced continuous annual yields for four to six years.
Citrus Intercropping: Growers routinely interplanted four rows of pineapples between rows of young orange and lemon trees spaced twenty-five feet apart. The pineapples provided ground cover, shaded delicate tree root zones, shared fertilizer applications, and generated cash returns during the five to seven years required for citrus trees to reach bearing age.
Varietal Selection: King identified Red Spanish as the most dependable commercial shipping variety due to its tough rind, while Sugar Loaf and Queen were preferred for home consumption. Specimen fruits on King’s farm reached up to 8¾ pounds.[fa-1893-01-11]

In July 1893, local notary and agriculturalist U. S. C. Perkins forwarded fresh Avon Park field pineapples and George Edmiston’s Niagara grapes to Oliver M. Crosby in Chicago for exhibition at the World’s Columbian Exposition, advertising the district’s thermal protection and agricultural capacity.[fa-1893-07-05]

The 1897 Growers and Named Pineries

Following the Great Freeze of 1894–1895, which destroyed mature citrus canopies, Avon Park growers expanded their pineapple acreage to maintain cash income. A comprehensive survey published in The Florida Agriculturist in September 1897 documented a flourishing community of specialist growers:

Charles Wilkinson: Managed what state agricultural correspondents termed the “model acre in pines,” producing fruits weighing four to seven pounds and conducting varietal trials across Abaka, Enville City, Blood, Strawberry, Queen, and Porto Rico varieties.
George Edmiston (and John Edminster): Maintained a commercial Smooth Cayenne pinnery alongside the interior’s premier Niagara grape vineyard.
Charles Krause: Pioneer grower documented alongside Wilkinson and Edminster in an 1894 field photograph showing intercropped pines within a fenced citrus grove.[maxwell-1976]
E. L. Hall: Pioneer grower testing Black Jamaica, Smooth Cayenne, and Abaka; later established the town’s prominent Main Street jewelry store.
John T. Hendricks: Abstractor and civil leader who maintained an intensive one-acre garden on East Pleasant Street shipping Cayennes, Abakas, and Red Spanish.
A. E. Bennett: Livery stable proprietor who cultivated the Condon place, producing twelve-pound pineapples with specialized organic fertilization.
J. Bell: Expanded his plantings near Lake Tulane by setting several thousand additional slips in late 1897.

By late 1897, four major named plantations operated in the township: the Indiana Pinery on Lake Carter (established by Miss Law of Indiana), the Bamboo Pinery, the Holley Hill Pinery, and the Oak Hill Pinery.[fa-1897-12-01]

Plantation Geography and Acreage

Because pineapples were planted both in open-field monoculture and intercropped between grove rows, the half-million plants recorded in 1897 occupied between 50 and 100 acres of land. Plantations were concentrated on elevated, well-drained slopes bordering freshwater sinkhole lakes:

Lake Carter: Site of the Indiana Pinery on the town’s northern perimeter.
Lake Verona and Lake Tulane: Heart of the early settlement, hosting the King, Wilkinson, Krause, and Edmiston holdings.
Lake Lotela, Lake Isis, and Lake Olivia: Outlying suburban grove tracts with interplanted pineries.
Town Plat Lots: High-density garden plots along East Pleasant Street, West Bell Street, and South Forest Avenue.

Economic and Logistical Factors in the Industry’s Demise

By the mid-1900s, commercial pineapple cultivation had largely disappeared from Avon Park. The decline resulted from four intersecting economic and environmental developments:

Transportation Isolation: Prior to the completion of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad branch in 1912, Avon Park had no direct rail outlet. Soft, perishable dessert pineapples (such as Smooth Cayenne and Abaka) suffered severe bruising and decay during twenty-mile wagon hauls over deep sand trails to railheads at Fort Meade, Bowling Green, or Bartow.
East Coast Rail Competition: Henry Flagler’s Florida East Coast Railway provided growers along the Indian River and St. Lucie ridge (Fort Pierce, Jensen, Eden) with fast, daily refrigerated express service to northern markets, undercutting interior freight costs.
Severe Freezes: Although pineapples survived the 1894–1895 freezes far better than citrus, the severe freeze of February 1899 and subsequent winter frosts caused severe foliage burn on unshaded open-field plants, requiring expensive slat sheds ($500 to $1,000 per acre) that smallholders could not finance.
Citrus Canopy Closure: As reconstituted citrus groves matured on sour orange and rough lemon rootstocks between 1900 and 1910, the expanding tree canopies shaded out the interplanted pineapple beds, leading growers to remove the plants as planned.

By the publication of the 1907 and 1911 R. L. Polk Florida State Gazetteers, Avon Park’s agricultural economy had completed its transition to large-scale citrus groves, winter truck farming (celery, cabbage, potatoes), and commercial ornamental nurseries.

References

fa-1893-01-11 — William King, via The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.). The Florida Agriculturist, 11 January 1893, page 6: Pineapple Culture in DeSoto County, by Wm. King. 11 January 1893. florida-agriculturist.md
fa-1893-07-05 — The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.). The Florida Agriculturist, 5 July 1893, page 6: DeSoto County Pines. 5 July 1893. florida-agriculturist.md
fa-1897-09-08 — A. L. R., The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.). The Florida Agriculturist, 8 September 1897, page 1: Among the Pineapple Growers. 8 September 1897. florida-agriculturist.md
fa-1897-12-01 — The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.). The Florida Agriculturist, 1 December 1897, page 13: the Indiana Pinery on Lake Carter, from the Avon Park correspondent of the Bartow Courier-Informant. 1 December 1897. florida-agriculturist.md
maxwell-1976 — Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell. The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida. 1976. the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md

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

William King, via The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), The Florida Agriculturist, 11 January 1893, page 6: Pineapple Culture in DeSoto County, by Wm. King (1893)
The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), The Florida Agriculturist, 5 July 1893, page 6: DeSoto County Pines (1893)
A. L. R., The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), The Florida Agriculturist, 8 September 1897, page 1: Among the Pineapple Growers (1897)
The Florida Agriculturist (DeLand, Fla.), The Florida Agriculturist, 1 December 1897, page 13: the Indiana Pinery on Lake Carter, from the Avon Park correspondent of the Bartow Courier-Informant (1897)
Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (Held at the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum, Avon Park, Florida) (1976) · book

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The Avon Park Township Horticultural Association and the ridge pineapple industry