The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Bougainvillea Cemetery

Bougainvillea Cemetery, at 591 US Highway 27 on the north side of Avon Park, is the town’s own burial ground and its oldest.[fg-bougainvillea] It was a gift of the founder: Oliver Crosby laid it out, with a small circular park near the east side of the lot, and gave the ten acres to the town “when the original maps were made.”[maxwell-1976]

The first graves

The first burial was in 1888, before the Verona was finished: Hulda Stenstrom, three months old, buried near an oak tree on the east side of the ground; her family, the John C. Stenstroms, later moved to Wauchula.[maxwell-1976] Her stone survives, and Find a Grave records it: born 13 July 1888, died 6 October 1888.[fg-stenstrom] Thirteen people died in the fall and winter of 1889–1890—twelve consumptive health-seekers and a young man drowned while sailing on Lake Verona; local carpenters constructed pine coffins, the townswomen draped them in black cloth at Crosby’s expense, and Crosby conducted the committal services in the absence of a minister.[maxwell-1976] All thirteen were laid to rest in unmarked graves in the new cemetery, leaving no surviving carved stone monuments from that winter.[maxwell-1976]

Only six marked headstones from the nineteenth century survive in the cemetery: following infant Hulda Stenstrom (1888) are Anna Daugherty (1819–1892, inscribed “It is well with her soul”),[fg-anna-daugherty] William F. Smith (1823–1893),[fg-smith] Sarah Wheeler Abbott (1826–1898),[fg-abbott] Elizabeth Ross (1829–1899),[fg-ross] and James W. Woodruff (1819–1901).[fg-woodruff] Two early index anomalies have been resolved through physical examination of the headstones: an entry for an “Ernest Bartlett” with an 1884 death date represents an eroded modern or turn-of-the-century marker,[fg-bartlett] while an entry for “Clayton A. Denmark” transcribed as dying in 1892 at age eight is a 90-year clerical misreading of the headstone of Atlantic Coast Line Railroad station agent Clayton A. Denmark (1883–1982).[fg-denmark]

The Cemetery Association

By 1906 an Avon Park Cemetery Association was caring for the ground. That March the Arcadia paper’s Avon Park column reported that Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Butler had given it “a good second-hand pump and well tubing,” so that a well could be driven in the cemetery to water the trees, shrubs and flowers planted there, “a much needed improvement.”[dscn-1906-03-23] Nine years later the association was still meeting annually: at its annual meeting in February 1915 it elected H. Seaverns president, T. F. Tucker secretary, F. B. West treasurer, and Mrs. H. Seaverns and Mrs. E. D. Richardson as its executive committee.[dsc-1915-02-11]

Although an informal association operated from at least March 1906, trustees formally incorporated the organization under Florida law on 7 June 1990 as the Avon Park Cemetery Association, Inc. (Document Number 703867).[sunbiz-cemetery-assoc-1990] On Highlands County Property Appraiser rolls, the cemetery encompasses two contiguous parcels—parcel A-21-33-28-010-0010-0000 (9.49 acres inside the city limits) and parcel C-21-33-28-010-0011-0000 (0.51 acres in unincorporated territory)—with the legal description “BOUGAINVILLEA CEMETERY PB-3-PG 90 + PB 7 PG 41 ALL CEMETERY”, reflecting the original layout platted in Plat Book 3, Page 90 and subsequent expansions platted in Plat Book 7, Page 41.[hcpao-bougainvillea-parcel-a]

The Internal Revenue Service recognized the corporation as a tax-exempt cemetery company in November 1991; in 2025 it took in about $73,000, nearly all from services, employed a president and a groundskeeper, and held net assets of about $545,000.[propublica-assoc] A Bougainvillea Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust, recognized in April 1992 and administered from Orlando, held about $956,000 in 2023 and makes grants to the Association for the cemetery’s upkeep.[propublica-trust]

Who lies there

The founder does. Crosby died at a retirement home in Largo in 1932 and asked to be brought back; he was buried near the circular park he had laid out, and on 4 July 1976 the town’s Bicentennial committees set a monument on the grave naming him the founder of Avon Park, the stone given by the Hart Memorials of Sebring.[maxwell-1976] William King, the first settler, killed by a train at the Main Street crossing in 1929, and his wife Mary lie here, as do Dr. J. M. and Dr. Mary McCartney, the Verona’s owners, under a small metal cross that kept sinking into the sand until it was set in concrete.[maxwell-1976] Find a Grave indexes 5,013 memorials in the cemetery, nearly all of them photographed.[fg-bougainvillea]

The monument on Oliver M. Crosby’s grave

The monument erected on Oliver M. Crosby’s grave in Bougainvillea Cemetery on 4 July 1976. The First Hundred Years of Avon Park, Florida (1976), page 58. Avon Park Historical Society.[maxwell-1976]

When the ground took the name Bougainvillea is not recorded in any source found; the 1906 column calls it simply the Avon Park cemetery.[dscn-1906-03-23]

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. S. F. Tucker (department editor), The De Soto County News, Arcadia, Fla., The De Soto County News, 11 February 1915, page 7: Avon Park Department, S. F. Tucker, Editor (1915) · newspaper
  2. 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
  3. Find a Grave contributors, Hulda Stenstrom (13 Jul 1888 - 6 Oct 1888), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 13490655 (2006) · secondary
  4. Find a Grave contributors, Bougainvillea Cemetery, Avon Park, Highlands County, Florida, Find a Grave cemetery 71796 (2026) · secondary
  5. Find a Grave contributors, Clayton A. Denmark (18 Dec 1883 - 29 Nov 1982), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 35726262 (2009) · secondary
  6. Find a Grave contributors, Anna Daugherty (1 Apr 1819 - 3 Dec 1892), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 34560596 (2009) · secondary
  7. Find a Grave contributors, William F. Smith (10 Jan 1823 - 2 Mar 1893), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 34559959 (2009) · secondary
  8. Find a Grave contributors, Sarah Wheeler Abbott (1826 - 1898), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 37221367 (2009) · secondary
  9. Find a Grave contributors, Elizabeth Ross (12 May 1829 - 25 Apr 1899), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 34619969 (2009) · secondary
  10. Find a Grave contributors, James W. Woodruff (22 Mar 1819 - 26 Dec 1901), Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 34560394 (2009) · secondary
  11. Find a Grave contributors, field survey by Grace Younglove Hudson, Ernest Bartlett, Bougainvillea Cemetery, Find a Grave memorial 36833003 (2009) · secondary
  12. The De Soto County News, Avon Park department, The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), 23 March 1906, page 8 (1906) · newspaper
  13. ProPublica, from Internal Revenue Service filings, Avon Park Cemetary Association, EIN 59-0751585, Nonprofit Explorer (2026) · official
  14. ProPublica, from Internal Revenue Service filings, Bougainvillea Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust, EIN 59-6179414, Nonprofit Explorer (2026) · official
  15. Highlands County Property Appraiser, Highlands County Property Appraiser Parcel A-21-33-28-010-0010-0000, 591 US 27 N, Avon Park (2026) · official
  16. Florida Division of Corporations, Avon Park Cemetery Association, Inc., Articles of Incorporation, 7 June 1990 (Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations, Document 703867) (1990) · official

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