The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Paul L. Rumpsa

Paul Leo Rumpsa (2 February 1889 – November 1964) was an Avon Park road builder, citrus horticulturist, boutique packing-house operator, and civic pioneer.[findagrave-rumpsa][maxwell-1976] After arriving in Avon Park in 1917 with the highway contractors who paved Main Street and constructed the county’s primary asphalt trunk line south to Sebring, Rumpsa established a permanent homestead at 24 East Walnut Street, planted and managed groves, and developed an independent direct-to-consumer gift-fruit marketing enterprise that bypassed industrial railcar packing conglomerates.[maxwell-1976][fm-rumpsa-1930]

Arrival and Road Construction (1917)

Rumpsa arrived in Avon Park in the spring of 1917 as a crew member of the W. P. Kennedy Construction Company.[maxwell-1976] The company had been contracted to pave Avon Park’s Main Street commercial district with sheet asphalt and construct the connecting hard-surfaced highway south to Sebring (later designated Alternate State Route 17).[maxwell-1976] Kennedy Construction erected a temporary Cummer belt-driven road asphalt mixing plant along the Atlantic Coast Line railroad tracks to process native sand, crushed rock aggregate, and hot bitumen.[fm-rc10107]

When construction concluded, most itinerant contractors moved to other infrastructure projects across the state. Rumpsa and fellow crewman Louie R. Marlin chose to remain permanently in Avon Park, marrying and establishing roots in the emerging citrus community.[maxwell-1976]

Boutique Citrus Culture and Citrus Par Excellence (1923–1930s)

Entering the citrus industry during the post-World War I boom, Rumpsa acquired mature grove acreage featuring trees originally planted in the late 1890s and early 1900s.[fm-rumpsa-1930] Rather than aligning with the large cooperative exchanges (such as the Avon Park Citrus Growers Association) or corporate volume shippers (such as the Lake Byrd Citrus Packing Company and American Fruit Growers), Rumpsa developed an independent direct-mail marketing strategy.[fm-rumpsa-1930]

In 1930, Rumpsa articulated his agricultural philosophy and commercial offerings in a twelve-page illustrated treatise and catalog, Citrus Par Excellence, printed by the Drew Press in Jacksonville.[fm-rumpsa-1930] In it, Rumpsa formulated a detailed critique of industrial citrus handling:

  1. Rejection of Artificial Coloring: Rumpsa condemned the prevailing commercial practice of exposing early-picked fruit to high-temperature ethylene “sweat rooms” for artificial coloring, arguing that it accelerated decay, reduced juice content, and destroyed natural sweetness.[fm-rumpsa-1930]
  2. Rejection of Refrigerator Railcars: He contended that long transit in chilled railcars impaired delicate subtropical flavor profiles, advocating instead for same-day dispatch via express courier service directly to consumer doorsteps.[fm-rumpsa-1930]
  3. Boutique Harvesting and Packaging: Operating his own dedicated private packing house, Rumpsa picked only to order, washed and dried each fruit, wrapped every piece in branded tissue paper, and custom-packed multiple varieties (oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, tangelos, and kumquats) into whole (80 lbs.), half (40 lbs.), or quarter (20 lbs.) wooden crates.[fm-rumpsa-1930]
  4. Holiday and Executive Specialty Packs: For Christmas shipments, Rumpsa decorated crates gratis with fresh sprigs of kumquats, mistletoe, and evergreen loquat leaves, offering custom engraved donor cards for gift shipments to corporate, political, and professional clients.[fm-rumpsa-1930]

Between 1923 and 1930, Rumpsa established a direct express shipping record of delivering 993 out of every 994 shipments to out-of-state destinations without loss, damage, or freeze impairment.[fm-rumpsa-1930]

Varieties Cultivated

Rumpsa specialized in tree-ripened specialty varieties suited to the sandy soils and protected microclimates of the Lake Wales Ridge:[fm-rumpsa-1930]

  • Grapefruit: Silver Cluster, Excelsior, and Marsh Seedless, harvested from mature rootstock more than thirty years old.[fm-rumpsa-1930]
  • Round Oranges: Navel, historic Florida Seedling, Pineapple, Homosassa, Mediterranean Sweet, and late-season Valencia.[fm-rumpsa-1930]
  • Specialty Hybrids: Temple Orange (characterized as “difficult to grow, unsurpassed when right”), King Orange (King of Siam), and the Sampson Tangelo (a grapefruit-tangerine cross promoted as an acid-sweet breakfast fruit).[fm-rumpsa-1930]
  • Mandarin and Acid Fruits: Dancy Tangerine and Nagami and Marumi Kumquats (for which Rumpsa published his own kitchen recipe for boiled kumquat preserves).[fm-rumpsa-1930]

Scientific Affiliations and Civic Life

Rumpsa remained active in regional citrus science for decades, maintaining membership in the Florida State Horticultural Society through the 1950s (listed at Drawer 608, Avon Park, in the society’s 1951 and 1953 annual proceedings).[fshs-1951]

In community and religious life, the Rumpsas played foundational roles:

  • Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church: In 1956, Paul and Anna Rumpsa were among the charter founding parishioners who organized Our Lady of Grace under founding pastor Rev. Emil A. Heiring, establishing the first permanent Roman Catholic parish in Avon Park.[maxwell-1976]
  • Avon Park Garden Club: On 15 January 1946, Anna E. (Lang) Rumpsa (1889–1979) co-founded the Avon Park Garden Club, serving as its inaugural Vice President alongside President Mrs. W. H. Kempton.[maxwell-1976] The club led civic beautification projects across Avon Park, establishing covered picnic tables and roadside landscaping along US Highway 27 south of town.[maxwell-1976]

Death and Burial

Paul L. Rumpsa died in Avon Park in November 1964 at the age of seventy-five.[findagrave-rumpsa] Anna E. Rumpsa died in June 1979 at the age of eighty-nine.[findagrave-rumpsa] Both are buried in Bougainvillea Cemetery in Avon Park, where their grave monuments bear biblical inscriptions reflecting their faith.[findagrave-rumpsa]

Grove Location and Surviving Business Records

Despite the detailed documentation of his packing methodology in Citrus Par Excellence, the exact physical coordinates of Rumpsa’s citrus groves are not recorded in contemporary public databases, though his mailing address was listed as Drawer 608, Avon Park, and his residence was located at 24 East Walnut Street.[fshs-1951][maxwell-1976] A 1920 Sanborn map documents Avon Park’s street grid of the era but does not delineate individual grove holdings outside the urban core.[loc-sanborn-1920]

Exhaustive archival searches have returned zero surviving business ledgers, customer manifests, or unpublished personal papers related to his gift-fruit enterprise; the historical record of his operation currently relies entirely on his 1930 published treatise.[fm-rumpsa-1930]

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. Paul L. Rumpsa; printed by Drew Press (Jacksonville, Fla.), Citrus Par Excellence by Paul L. Rumpsa, 1930 (State Library of Florida, Federal Documents Collection, call number Fla 634.3 R937, item flc_634.3-r937_01) (references/citrus-par-excellence_paul-l-rumpsa_1930.md) (1930)
  2. 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)
  3. State Archives of Florida, Cummer road asphalt plant, W. P. Kennedy Construction company - Avon Park, Florida, 8 May 1917 (1917)
  4. Find a Grave, Paul L. Rumpsa (1889-1964) Memorial 27437299 and Anna E. Rumpsa (1889-1979) Memorial 27437300, Bougainvillea Cemetery, Avon Park, Florida (2010)
  5. Florida State Horticultural Society, Proceedings of the Florida State Horticultural Society, Sixty-Fourth Annual Meeting (1951), page 298 (1951)
  6. Sanborn Map Company, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Avon Park, Highlands County, Florida (media/sanborn-fire-insurance-map-avon-park-1920.md) (1920)

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