Origin of “the most beautiful township in South Florida” Quote
Barbara Berry Darsey’s 1937 manuscript, Avon Park, asserts that the legend “The most beautiful township in south Florida” was copied from the face of the “1886 Manatee County map.”
A review of the cartographic and archival record clarifies this attribution. Standard published 1886 maps of Manatee County (such as those by O. W. Gray and Son, Granville, and the Florida Railroad & Navigation Co.) contain no such promotional language. Oliver M. Crosby was not a county mapmaker, but rather the developer of a specific township (Township 33 South, Range 28 East). Darsey was actually referring to the Map of Avon Park, which Crosby filed with the Manatee County Clerk of Court on 11 May 1886 and recorded 16 June 1886 at Plat Book page 4. This specific plat map carried the promotional legend.
Furthermore, the exact phrase survives in print as a direct quotation in Crosby’s own 1888 promotional pamphlet, Common Sense about Florida (page 16). Promoting the new settlement, Crosby wrote:
“Avon Park still is quoted as ‘the most beautiful township in South Florida;’ and, since the time when the writer, with a guide, first explored its uninhabited pine-covered slopes, many residents and others, who visited only to fall in love with it and invest there, have echoed our words.”
The phrase is indeed an authentic piece of Crosby’s earliest advertising. It originated on his 1886 plat map of the townsite and was subsequently quoted in his 1888 Common Sense pamphlet, which is the earliest surviving printed occurrence in the public domain.
References
- darsey-1937-manuscript — Barbara Berry Darsey. Avon Park. P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History
- crosby-1888-pamphlet — O. M. Crosby. Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park. https://archive.org/details/commonsenseabout00cros
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
- public-domain
Sources
- Barbara Berry Darsey, Avon Park (P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History)
- O. M. Crosby, Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park
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