The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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The naming of the Avon Park lakes: Classical, pioneer, and familial toponymy (1885–1925)

The hydrographic landscape of Avon Park and northern Highlands County is defined by a dense cluster of circular, karst solution basins situated along the spine of the Lake Wales Ridge.[crosby-1888-pamphlet] Within Township 33 South, Range 28 East and its immediate perimeter, more than twenty named freshwater lakes provided the setting and microclimatic frost protection for late nineteenth-century horticultural settlements.[crosby-1888-pamphlet][pabor-1897-retrospective]

Primary founding records, federal land office surveys, and promotional prospectuses document that these lakes received their names through three distinct historical naming phases: pioneer cattle-trail vernacular, the classical and literary system assigned by Obadiah A. Clough and Oliver M. Crosby in 1886–1888, and the familial designations bestowed by William E. Pabor in 1892.[crosby-1919-recollection][womans-tribune-1892-10-15]

Pioneer Toponyms and Pre-Settlement Vernacular (Pre-1886)

Before formal townsite platting in 1886–1887, early cattle drovers, federal surveyors, and regional traders from Fort Meade assigned descriptive or patronymic identifiers to several major basins:[crosby-1919-recollection][maxwell-1976]

  • Tiger Lake (Lake Tulane): Recorded on antebellum sketch maps provided to Oliver Crosby by guide Capt. John A. Adams, likely named for early sightings of Florida panthers ("tigers") in the scrub oak ridges.[crosby-1919-recollection]
  • Carter Lake (Lake Lotela): Named for the pioneer Fort Meade mercantile and cattle firm of Carter & Henry, who pastured open-range cattle across the south-central ridge flatwoods.[crosby-1919-recollection][maxwell-1976]
  • Lake Thompson (Lake Brentwood): Named for pioneer homesteader James H. Thompson, who proved a federal land patent in Section 10 on its northwestern perimeter.[glo-survey-t33s-r28e][maxwell-1976]
  • Lake Bonnet (Big Bonnet Lake): Named after the dense floating colonies of yellow spatterdock water lilies (Nuphar advena, colloquially termed "bonnets") characteristic of shallow solution margins.[maxwell-1976]
  • Lake Byrd: Named for the Byrd Brothers, Irish immigrant settlers who acquired early ridge acreage and established orange groves along its perimeter.[maxwell-1976]

The Clough and Crosby Classical and Literary System (1886–1888)

In his 1919 founding memoir, Oliver M. Crosby clarified the division of responsibility for the original townsite lake nomenclature:[crosby-1919-recollection]

"I did not name the lakes as Mr. Lee states in his history, but Mr. Clough wrote the names, as they occurred to him, on the new map we were later to publish."[crosby-1919-recollection]

Obadiah A. Clough, Crosby’s initial financial partner and the grantor named on early townsite contracts, established a systematic neoclassical and literary naming pattern across Township 33 South:[crosby-1919-recollection][crosby-1888-pamphlet]

Lake Name Etymological Origin and Cultural Context
Lake Verona Named for the Italian city of Verona, famed setting of Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Romeo and Juliet, and the namesake for Crosby’s 32-room Hotel Verona (1887–1889). Crosby noted that Lake Verona did not appear on original federal survey plats because its basin did not touch a section line.[crosby-1919-recollection][maxwell-1976]
Lake Tulane Renamed from "Tiger Lake" to honor Tulane University in New Orleans, reflecting collegiate prestige and cultural refinement.[crosby-1919-recollection]
Lake Lotela Renamed from "Carter Lake" using an euphonious, romanticized pastoral construction.[crosby-1919-recollection]
Lake Damon & Lake Pythias Named after the legendary fourth-century BC Pythagorean companions Damon and Pythias of Syracuse, classic exemplars of unbreakable fraternal loyalty recorded by Cicero and Valerius Maximus.[crosby-1919-recollection]
Lake Olivia & Lake Viola Named for the twin heroines of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Twelfth Night (Viola and Olivia), matching the literary cadence of Lake Verona.[crosby-1919-recollection][crosby-1888-pamphlet]
Lake Isis Named for Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of nature, fertility, and renewal, reflecting nineteenth-century romantic neoclassicism.[crosby-1888-pamphlet]
Lake Letta (Lake Leto) Derived from classical Greek mythology (Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, deity of motherhood and serene waters).[crosby-1888-pamphlet]
Lake Lelia Named during Crosby’s initial winter 1885–1886 scouting expedition with Capt. Adams, where the party bathed after crossing the ridge from Lake Lotela.[crosby-1919-recollection]
Lake Glenada Named during early 1886 reconnaissance, later lending its designation to the Glenada Hills Land Company development.[crosby-1919-recollection]
Lake Pioneer Named by Crosby for the initial homestead tracts located in Sections 3 and 10 north of Lake Verona (including Charles J. Williams).[crosby-1919-recollection]

The 1892 Pabor Lake Colony Familial and Literary Cluster

When poet and agricultural journalist William E. Pabor platted the 1,400-acre Pabor Lake Colony four miles north of Avon Park in July 1892, he named the surrounding chain of seven solution basins using a combination of familial, literary, and natural names:[womans-tribune-1892-10-15][pabor-1897-retrospective]

  • Pabor Lake: Named for William E. Pabor and his family, serving as the civic center of the colony townsite.[womans-tribune-1892-10-15]
  • Pansy Lake (Lake Pansy): Named in honor of Pabor’s ten-year-old daughter, Pansy Pabor (born c. 1882 in Colorado).[womans-tribune-1892-10-15]
  • Lake Adelaide (originally Lake Vigo): Renamed in honor of Pabor’s wife, Adelaide A. (Merrick) Pabor.[womans-tribune-1892-10-15]
  • Lake Lillian (originally Lake Nemo): Originally designated Lake Nemo (after Captain Nemo of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), subsequently renamed for Pabor’s daughter, Lillian Pabor; later became the waterfront setting for the 1920s Highlands Lakes Hotel.[womans-tribune-1892-10-15]
  • Trout Lake: Named for its game fish population; later deeded in 1939 by John Sears Francis to establish Camp Wingmann.[womans-tribune-1892-10-15]

Boom-Era Residential Hydronyms (1915–1926)

During the Florida land boom, real estate developers standardized lake nomenclature for modern residential subdivisions:[maxwell-1976]

  • Lake Brentwood: Formally replaced the older designation "Lake Thompson" following the operations of J. C. Burleigh’s sawmill and early twentieth-century residential platting.[maxwell-1976]
  • Lake Anoka: Platted during the 1920s boom subdivisions, adopting the popular Ojibwe/Minnesota toponym Anoka ("on both sides" or "working waters").[maxwell-1976]

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.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Founding Scouting Trip Recollections (1919) (references/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1919)
  2. Oliver Marvin Crosby, Common Sense About Florida: Lake Forest and Avon Park (references/crosby-1888-common-sense-about-florida.md) (1888)
  3. Leoma Bradshaw Maxwell, The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (references/the-first-hundred-years-of-avon-park_leoma-bradshaw-maxwell_1976.md) (1976)
  4. William E. Pabor, Florida — Pabor Lake Colony: Pineapple Lands Surrounded by Seven Lakes, advertisement in The Woman's Tribune (Beatrice, Neb.), 15 October 1892, page 3 (1892)
  5. William E. Pabor, Five Years in Florida, The Florida Agriculturist, 6 October 1897, page 1 (1897)
  6. Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Survey Plat and Field Notes for Township 33 South, Range 28 East (2026)

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