The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Seaboard Air Line Railway station, Avon Park

3 North Museum Avenue, on its original site about a hundred yards north of Main Street. It is the building the Avon Park Historical Society occupies today, and the only railway station left standing in the town.

Why it was built

In April 1924 the Seaboard Air Line chartered a subsidiary, the Florida Western and Northern Railroad, to drive a new line from its main line at Coleman, south of Wildwood, down the middle of the peninsula to West Palm Beach.[wiki-fwn] Through Avon Park and Sebring it ran within sight of the Atlantic Coast Line’s Haines City Branch, which had held the trade to itself since 1912. The Interstate Commerce Commission heard the new company’s application for a certificate of convenience and necessity at Jacksonville on 1 May 1924, and issued its authorization for the 204-mile route on 20 June 1924 (Finance Docket 3445, 90 I.C.C. 221).[icc-90-221]

The line was built at extraordinary speed. The final spike on the Coleman-to-West Palm Beach segment was driven on 21 January 1925, and on 25 January 1925 a special Orange Blossom Special carried the Seaboard’s president S. Davies Warfield and about five hundred guests over the new road.[wiki-fwn] That train passed through Avon Park.

The state’s own records bracket the opening exactly. The Railroad Commission’s station list for the year ending 29 February 1924 shows Avon Park on the Coast Line branch only;[frc-27] the list for the following year adds the Seaboard’s line running Polk City — Auburndale — Winter Haven — West Lake Wales — West Frostproof — Avon Park — Hartt — Sebring — Okeechobee — West Palm Beach.[frc-28] The following year’s report carries the same line and the same station, which confirms the service was not a single-season arrangement.[frc-29]

The building

A one-story masonry passenger and freight station, Spanish Eclectic in style: hollow tile construction under rough stucco, a hip-roofed main entrance block with a round-arched doorway and round-arched windows divided by spiral columns, and a long parapeted flat-roofed freight extension. The west elevation, facing the tracks, repeats the arcading and carries a flat awning on decorative brackets. An offset chimney with a corbeled brick cap and a poured concrete foundation complete it.[nrhp-90000486]

The National Register nomination dates the building to 1925.[nrhp-90000486] Other accounts give 1924 or 1926.[riches-depots][wiki-depot-museum] The 1925 date is the best supported: it is the year the line opened, and the nomination is the only source that examined the building itself.

The line’s passenger depots were designed by the prominent West Palm Beach firm of Harvey and Clarke (partners Henry Stephen Harvey and Louis Phillips Clarke, with associate Gustav Maass) under a master commission from Seaboard president S. Davies Warfield for the Florida Western and Northern extension.[wiki-harvey-clarke][wiki-fwn] The Avon Park station was built in standardized Spanish Eclectic / Mediterranean Revival styling with customized load-bearing hollow clay tile and stucco, round-arched portals, and Solomonic dividing colonnettes, sharing architectural lineage with sister depots at Sebring, Okeechobee, West Palm Beach, Delray Beach, and Deerfield Beach.[wiki-harvey-clarke][nrhp-90000486]

By 1990 the building had lost its original round-arched windows on the east front, its barrel tile roof had been replaced with composition shingles, and several rectangular window openings had been boarded over.[nrhp-90000486]

Trains and the end of service

The station served the Palmland, Silver Meteor, Silver Star and Sunland, on what the Seaboard called its Miami Subdivision.[wiki-depot-museum] Passenger service ended on 30 April 1971, when Amtrak took over the surviving long-distance trains.[riches-depots] The building was given to the Old Settlers Association on 4 January 1979 and now houses the Depot Museum and the Historical Society of Avon Park, with a 1948 California Zephyr dining car bought by the society in 1986.[riches-depots]

Not to be confused with the Coast Line station

The Atlantic Coast Line’s own depot stood elsewhere — on Michigan Avenue at Church Street — and was razed in the early 1980s.[nrhp-90000486] At least one published catalogue record attributes the museum building to the Coast Line; that is an error. See the finding on the two depots.

References

Where this comes from

Evidence
single-source — One source. Treat as reported, not established.
Review
unverified — Drafted from sources but not yet checked by a volunteer.
Rights
society

Sources

  1. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Avon Park Historic District (1990)
  2. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 29 February 1924 (1924)
  3. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 28 February 1925 (1925)
  4. Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Florida, for the year ending 28 February 1926 (1926)
  5. Wikipedia, Miami Subdivision: the Seaboard's Coleman to West Palm Beach line, built by the Florida Western and Northern Railroad (2026)
  6. RICHES of Central Florida, University of Central Florida, Railroad Depots of Avon Park, in Central Florida Railroad Depots (2026)
  7. Interstate Commerce Commission, Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, Volume 90 (Finance Docket No. 3445, Construction of lines by Florida Western & Northern R. R., decided June 20, 1924) (1924) · official
  8. Wikipedia, Harvey and Clarke (Architectural Firm) (2026)
  9. Wikipedia, Depot Museum (2026)

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