The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Dorr D. Kinney

Dorr D. Kinney (born May 1839 in New York; also recorded as D. D. Kinney) was an early pioneer merchant, civic notary, and the fourth postmaster of Avon Park, serving from July 1891 through September 1896.[maxwell-1976][census-1900-desoto-ap]

Commercial and Postal Leadership

Kinney arrived in Avon Park during the initial promotional era under the Florida Development Company. He purchased the early general merchandise store on East Main Street established by Tobe Hendry (of the mercantile firm Carter & Hendry of Fort Meade).[maxwell-1976] Following the tenures of William A. King, Arthur W. Dickson, and Edward W. Dawson, Kinney was officially appointed postmaster of Avon Park on 29 July 1891.[maxwell-1976]

Kinney relocated the town post office into his East Main Street store building, where he operated both the postal distribution and the general merchandise counter for five years.[maxwell-1976] His family held regional lodging and colony ties; Mrs. M. C. Kinney operated the Fort Meade Hotel in 1892–1893, which served as the primary staging depot and headquarters for incoming colonists bound for Pabor Lake and Avon Park via overland coach and wagon teams.[plp-1892-1897] On 9 May 1894, at her parents’ residence in Avon Park, Kinney’s daughter Jessie L. Kinney married Charles W. Pabor, son of Pabor Lake Colony founder William E. Pabor, with the Rev. Francis D. Rood officiating.[plp-1892-1897][dsc-1905-11-17]

His commission as a notary is on record: in October 1891 the Tallahassee paper listed among Governor Fleming’s civil appointments “D. D. Kinney of Avon Park to be notary public for the state at large.”[floridian-1891-10-10] The 1895 Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory documented Kinney as both postmaster and official notary public of Avon Park during the height of the town’s pre-freeze development.[gaz-1895] He was widely cited in regional land company literature as an established local reference alongside town founder Oliver M. Crosby.

Transfer to B. F. West and Later Years

Following the Great Freeze of 1894–1895, Kinney sold his two-story commercial building and mercantile business on East Main Street to Benjamin F. West in late 1895.[maxwell-1976] West and his family took up residence in the upper floor, expanded the store’s inventory to include groceries, dry goods, hardware, and an iron safe that initiated private banking in Avon Park, and assumed postal operations upon West’s formal commissioning as postmaster on 10 September 1896.[maxwell-1976]

Kinney remained a farmer at Avon Park through the turn of the century. In the June 1900 federal census of Precinct 11 (Avon Park), he was enumerated in Household 347/348 as a 61-year-old widower born in New York in May 1839, farming on his own account with his two Illinois-born sons, Lois Kinney (born March 1879, age 21) and Wilson E. (“Will”) Kinney (born June 1880, age 19).[census-1900-desoto-ap] By November 1905 he had moved to Orlando to live with his son Will: O. R. Thacher’s Avon Park column in The De Soto County News of 17 November 1905 reported that “Mrs. C. W. Pabor is in Orlando visiting her brother Will Kinney and his family. Her father D. D. Kinney is also there with his son.”[dsc-1905-11-17]

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. 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)
  2. The Weekly Floridian, The Weekly Floridian, Tallahassee, 10 October 1891, page 5: Civil Appointments (1891) · newspaper
  3. Belden Publishing Company, Florida Railroad Gazetteer and State Business Directory, 1895 (1895)
  4. William E. Pabor & Edgar A. Pabor, The Pabor Lake Pineapple (1892–1897) (references/pabor-lake-pineapple.md) (1897)
  5. United States Census Bureau, 1900 United States Federal Census, Precinct 11 (Avon Park), DeSoto County, Florida, Household 347/348 (1900) · official
  6. O. R. Thacher, in The De Soto County News (Arcadia, Fla.), The De Soto County News, 17 November 1905, page 8: Department of The South Florida Sun (Mrs. C. W. Pabor, Will Kinney, and D. D. Kinney in Orlando) (1905) · newspaper

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