The August 1919 Highlands Pilot citation for Crosby’s history cannot be right

The 1990 National Register nomination for the Avon Park Historic District cites two accounts of the town’s founding to the Highlands Pilot of August 1919: O. M. Crosby’s “Avon Park’s History: 1885 to 1896” and Samuel D. Lee’s “Avon Park’s Pioneer Days.”[nrhp-avon-park-district] These are the two most valuable missing documents in this project, and considerable effort has gone into finding them.

The paper did not exist in August 1919. It was founded three months later. At least six other Florida newspapers carried exchange notices in late 1919 reporting that George W. Adams had moved his printing plant from the Manatee Banner to Avon Park to start a new paper, placing its first issue in the last week of November.[ufdc-exchange-notices] The Library of Congress catalogues the title properly as the Highlands County Pilot of Avon Park, LCCN sn95026910, published weekly by the Pilot Press; its internal volume numbering implies a start around 1919 to 1920, consistent with that.[loc-newspaper-directory]

Three possibilities. The month or year is a transcription slip in the nomination. The material ran in a different, unidentified Avon Park paper. Or it ran later in the Pilot’s actual run and the nomination’s preparers mis-recorded the date.

What follows for research. Anyone hunting these two accounts should not restrict the search to August 1919. Search the Highlands County Pilot from late November 1919 forward, and consider other Avon Park papers of the period. None of them is digitized, and the Library of Congress’s holdings data for all three known Avon Park titles comes back empty, so this means microfilm or the Society’s own files.[loc-newspaper-directory]

A general caution. The National Register nomination has been the most reliable source in this project, and it is still the best single account of the town’s founding. But a demonstrable error in its bibliography is a reminder that even good secondary sources need checking against the record.

The Library’s own cataloguing supports the 1919 date

The Library of Congress catalogue record for the Highlands County Pilot (LCCN sn95026910) was compiled from surviving issues, and its notes settle the volume arithmetic. The record describes the paper from Vol. 9, no. 6 (3 January 1934) and consulted as late as Vol. 16, no. 26 (22 May 1935) — and adds that the “Vol. designation for 1934 varies randomly between v. 9 and v. 15.”[loc-pilot]

Two incompatible series were in use in the same year. Counting back from Vol. 16 in May 1935 gives a first volume in 1919 or 1920, which is exactly the founding date the exchange notices establish. Counting back from the v. 9 series gives about 1926.

The volume numbering therefore corroborates the late-November 1919 founding. The discrepancy recorded by the Library of Congress in 1934 is due to the same printing plant alternating between the volume count of the Pilot (founded late 1919) and The Scenic Highlands Sun (founded 1925). The Avon Park Sun’s Vol. 69 in 1988 correctly counts back exactly 69 years to the 1919 founding of the Highlands County Pilot, confirming the unbroken lineage. The alternating volume counts in the 1930s is a plausible way for a wrong date to enter a bibliography in the first place.

Survival of the Serials in the Society Archives

While neither the original newspaper runs nor microfilms of the 1919–1920 Highlands Pilot are held in state or national libraries, the texts of both serials survived in full.[maxwell-1976] Physical Xerox copies of Oliver M. Crosby’s “Avon Park’s History: 1885 to 1896” and Samuel D. Lee’s “Avon Park’s Pioneer Days” were made directly from surviving local newspaper files by Dr. Dan Davis, Highlands County School Superintendent, and Mary Garrett, vice president of the Avon Citrus Bank.[maxwell-1976]

These copies were preserved in the permanent archives of the Historical Society of the Old Settlers Association (now the Avon Park Historical Society Depot Museum).[maxwell-1976] Town historian Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell drew upon these physical reproductions extensively in The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976), quoting Crosby’s and Lee’s first-person accounts of the May 1885 expedition, the lake naming dispute, the Disston purchase contracts, and the 1894–1895 freezes.[maxwell-1976] For an analysis of the debate and historiographical lineage across both serials, see The Pioneer Historiography of Avon Park.

References

• loc-pilot — Library of Congress. Highlands County Pilot (Avon Park, Fla.), LCCN sn95026910, U.S. Newspaper Directory. 31 August 2026. newspapers-of-avon-park.md
• nrhp-avon-park-district — Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation / National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Avon Park Historic District (ref. 90000486). 22 March 1990. https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/90000486_text
• loc-newspaper-directory — Library of Congress. U.S. Newspaper Directory record for the Highlands County Pilot (Avon Park), LCCN sn95026910. 31 August 2026. https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/
• ufdc-exchange-notices — University of Florida Digital Collections. Florida newspaper exchange notices reporting the founding of the Highlands Pilot, late 1919. 31 December 1919. https://ufdc.ufl.edu
• 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

Related

• Finding: The pioneer historiography of Avon Park: Crosby, Lee, Fenton, and Maxwell
• Reference: The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976)
• Report: the founding of Avon Park and its first decade
• Oliver Marvin Crosby
• Reference: the newspapers of Avon Park

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. Library of Congress, Highlands County Pilot (Avon Park, Fla.), LCCN sn95026910, U.S. Newspaper Directory (2026)
2. Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation / National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Avon Park Historic District (ref. 90000486) (1990)
3. Library of Congress, U.S. Newspaper Directory record for the Highlands County Pilot (Avon Park), LCCN sn95026910 (2026)
4. University of Florida Digital Collections, Florida newspaper exchange notices reporting the founding of the Highlands Pilot, late 1919 (1919)
5. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976)

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