Avon Park voted its own town government out of existence in 1899

Summary

The town incorporated in the first week of January 1897 and elected a mayor, five councilmen, a clerk and a marshal.[savannah-1897-01-15] On Wednesday 1 March 1899 it voted on whether to go on having a government at all, and decided by better than three to one that it would not.

The election

The Morning News of Savannah reported it the following week:

The citizens of Avon Park, Fla., held an election last Wednesday to decide whether the municipal government should continue or cease, and out of forty-seven votes polled only twelve were in favor of continuing. Avon Park may be different from most of towns and not need a form of government, and if she is she certainly is an exception to the rule, and stands out alone in this distinction.[savannah-1899-03-09]

Thirty-five against, twelve for. The Georgia paper thought it worth a sentence of dry comment. The town’s own paper thought it a relief, and the Savannah column quoted it:

The Avon Park Idea says, in commenting upon the result of the election: “Thus has been settled a matter which has been a source of much dissatisfaction, discord, misunderstanding and some unnecessary ill feeling among our citizens, which, let us hope, is ended forever.”[savannah-1899-03-09]

Whatever the town government of 1897 had been doing in the two years since the freeze and the sheriff’s sale, it had divided the forty-seven men who turned out to vote about it, and most of them wanted it gone.

What it explains

Florida’s general law allowed an incorporated town to dissolve itself by exactly this kind of local election. That Avon Park used it accounts for something that has long made the 1897 incorporation look doubtful: the special charter the legislature granted in 1913 says that a municipality “is hereby established, organized and constituted,” recites no earlier charter, and repeals nothing.[lof-1913-6662] There was nothing to repeal. The first government had been voted away fourteen years before, and the town spent those fourteen years without one.

Related

• Avon Park incorporated in January 1897 and elected Clark D. Knapp its first mayor
• Avon Park was incorporated by Chapter 6662, Laws of Florida, approved 23 May 1913
• Who governed Avon Park
• The Avon Park Idea
• Avon Park in the out-of-town press, 1889–1900

References

• savannah-1899-03-09 — The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.). The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 9 March 1899, page 6: the election at Avon Park on whether the municipal government should continue, quoting the Avon Park Idea. 9 March 1899. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063034/1899-03-09/ed-1/?sp=6
• savannah-1897-01-15 — The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.). The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 15 January 1897, page 6: the incorporation of Avon Park and the election of its officers. 15 January 1897. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063034/1897-01-15/ed-1/?sp=6
• lof-1913-6662 — Florida State Legislature. Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913: An Act to Establish and Constitute a Municipality in DeSoto County, Florida, To Be Known and Designated as the Town of Avon Park. 23 May 1913. laws-of-florida-chapter-6662-1913.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

1. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 9 March 1899, page 6: the election at Avon Park on whether the municipal government should continue, quoting the Avon Park Idea (1899) · newspaper
2. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News, Savannah, Georgia, 15 January 1897, page 6: the incorporation of Avon Park and the election of its officers (1897) · newspaper
3. Florida State Legislature, Chapter 6662 (No. 242), Laws of Florida 1913: An Act to Establish and Constitute a Municipality in DeSoto County, Florida, To Be Known and Designated as the Town of Avon Park (references/laws-of-florida-chapter-6662-1913.md) (1913) · official

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