The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
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Avon Park in the outside press, 1886-1900

Summary

No files of Avon Park’s own nineteenth-century newspapers, The Florida Home Seeker and The Avon Park Idea, survive in any public repository. Yet because founder Oliver Marvin Crosby marketed the settlement from New York, London, and Jacksonville, and because Savannah’s Morning News maintained the most thorough daily Florida news desk in the South, the rise and collapse of Avon Park’s first boom can be reconstructed year by year from out-of-town and out-of-state newspapers between 1889 and 1900.

Those external dispatches preserve facts that no local chronicle recorded: the exact text and rates of the Hotel Verona’s first winter-resort advertisements in New York (1889–1890); Crosby’s January 1891 purchase of the South Florida Progress at Fort Meade so that Judge E. W. Dawson could print the Florida Homeseeker; his September 1891 sale of 2,500 acres at Welshton in Marion County while raising capital in London; the October 1894 balance sheet and officer slate of the Florida Development Company on the eve of the Great Freeze; the 12 January 1895 communal clearing of the wooden railroad’s right of way by over 200 men and the driving of its first spike by Mary Emma Crosby; the national syndication of the wooden railway story across at least twenty-four out-of-state newspapers; the litigation and sheriff’s sales that transferred the 20,000-acre townsite to Abbie R. Dodge in 1897; and the earliest surviving quotation from The South Florida Sun in June 1900.

Northern promotion, the Hotel Verona, and the naming of Lake Verona (1889–1891)

The earliest out-of-state newspaper traces of Avon Park follow Crosby’s Connecticut and New York sales network. On 3 April 1889, The Connecticut Western News of Salisbury, Litchfield County, Connecticut, noted that Frank E. Sperring, who managed Crosby’s northern land sales and later signed the Florida Development Company’s articles of incorporation, had “arrived home from Avon Park, Florida, the last of the week.”[cwn-1889-04-03]

When the thirty-two-room Hotel Verona opened for its inaugural winter season in late 1889, Crosby advertised directly to Manhattan readers in The Sun of New York across at least fifteen dated insertions between 9 December 1889 and 31 January 1890. The longer version, printed under “Winter Resorts” on 14 December 1889, offered an all-inclusive excursion package from New York:

Want a Good Time THE COMING WINTER? IF SO, GO TO AVON PARK, SOUTH FLORIDA. Hunt, fish, boat, and bathe in unfrozen lakes. Board $6 to $8 per week at HOTEL VERONA, on a lake shore. Round trip, transportation tickets, including board three weeks’ trip, only $75. Send stamp for papers with particulars. O. M. CROSBY, 99 Franklin st., N. Y.[sun-1889-12-14]

A shorter classified notice, printed on 6 January 1890 and repeated through January, gave the weekly board rate alone:

WANT A GOOD TIME This winter? Then go to Avon Park, Florida. Board at Hotel Verona $6 to $8 per week. Best hunting and fishing. Boats free. Send stamp for papers to O. M. CROSBY, 99 Franklin st., N. Y.[sun-1890-01-06]

In early 1891, Danbury real-estate broker William J. Nichols of Bradley, Nichols & Sons visited the settlement and gave The Newtown Bee of Newtown, Connecticut (6 March 1891) a contemporary account of Crosby’s tract and of how Lake Verona and the hotel shared their name:

There they found O. M. Crosby, formerly of Danbury, who, about five years ago, bought an entire township of about 20,000 acres, in the heart of Florida and has since been developing it. He calls it Avon Park and has a small settlement, at which he has built a handsome hotel, fronting a lovely lake; both lake and hotel are known as Lake Verona.[newtown-bee-1891-03-06]

By September 1891, small-lot sales out of Crosby’s 99 Franklin Street office had reached ordinary working New Yorkers: on 25 September 1891 both the New-York Tribune and The Sun reported the death in New York of an unmarried young boarder, the son of Orrison M. Blunt, noting among his effects that he had recently purchased “an acre of land at Avon Park, in that State, where he proposed to spend his old age.”[ny-tribune-1891-09-25][sun-1891-09-25]

Printing The Florida Homeseeker at Fort Meade (January 1891)

For more than a century, local accounts knew that The Florida Home Seeker was first printed at Fort Meade before its press was moved to Avon Park in the spring of 1893, without knowing what press printed it or who ran the shop. A dispatch in the Savannah Morning News of 27 January 1891 (page 6, under the “Florida” column) supplies the exact arrangement:

O. M. Crosby of Avon Park has purchased the South Florida Progress at Fort Meade. Judge E. W. Dawson, formerly of California, will edit and publish the Progress, and also publish the Florida Homeseeker, the latter edited by Mr. Crosby.[savannah-1891-01-27]

Crosby bought an existing newspaper plant at the Fort Meade railhead, placed Judge E. W. Dawson in charge of publishing both papers there, and edited the Homeseeker from Avon Park until the printing equipment was hauled twenty miles across the flatwoods to Avon Park in early 1893.[savannah-1891-01-27]

Welshton, London financing, and the Florida Development Company (1890–1894)

The Savannah Morning News also tracked the financial transition from Crosby’s earlier Marion County colonies to the corporate organization of the Florida Development Company. On 1 December 1890 the paper reported a pending syndicate combining “Avon Park land, and hotel in De Soto county, together with Marion county lands in the vicinity of Belleview,” totaling about 5,000 acres, to be capitalized at $100,000 under Crosby’s management.[savannah-1890-12-01]

The following year Crosby traveled to England to raise capital. On 29 September 1891, five weeks before the Florida Development Company filed its charter, the Morning News reported from Jacksonville:

O. M. Crosby, the well known boomer of Avon Park, is now in London, and writes to a friend in Jacksonville that he has just sold 2,500 acres of land known as Welshton, a hotel and storehouse to an English company for $210,000 cash.[savannah-1891-09-29]

Upon Crosby’s return from London, two contemporary papers recorded the filing of the Florida Development Company’s charter with the Florida Secretary of State: the Savannah Morning News on 2 November 1891 (which misprinted the capital stock as “$3,50,000” while naming the four offices at London, New York, Jacksonville, and Avon Park and the four incorporators, O. M. Crosby, Frank E. Sperring, Charles H. Smith, and Robert B. Archibald) and The Weekly Floridian of Tallahassee on 7 November 1891 (which printed the correct authorized capital stock of $250,000).[savannah-1891-11-02][floridian-1891-11-07]

Subsequent dispatches in the Savannah paper chronicled the rapid expansion of the ridge settlements between 1892 and 1894:

  • 28 August 1892: “O. M. Crosby, the great Avon Park boomer, has just consummated a big land deal with W. E. Pabor, editor of the Colorado Farmer and Fruit Grower, in which a 1,000-acre tract of valuable land was involved,” marking the launch of the neighboring Pabor Lake Colony.[savannah-1892-08-28]
  • 3 November 1892: “Prof. O. M. Crosby of Avon Park reports new settlers coming in rapidly. Twelve have already arrived and will build winter residences, ten are on their way now and twelve more will arrive next week.”[savannah-1892-11-03]
  • 5 April 1894: A prank at the town’s U.S. Weather Bureau voluntary observing station, where someone tampered with “the signal service thermometer at Hotel Verona, Avon Park, on Tuesday night last by holding a lighted match under the mercury.”[savannah-1894-04-05]
  • 19 and 25 September 1894: Quoting the Fort Meade Pebble, the Morning News reported on 19 September that autumn travel to Avon Park had begun early, with thirty newcomers going out the past week, half of them permanent settlers; six days later it noted that Crosby, Mrs. Crosby, and their daughter had arrived at Jacksonville’s Duval Hotel from New York aboard the steamship Iroquois on their way home to Avon Park.[savannah-1894-09-19][savannah-1894-09-25]

The Bank of Avon Park and the October 1894 stockholders’ meeting

Two out-of-state newspapers capture the financial peak of the Florida Development Company in the summer and autumn of 1894, immediately before the freezes of December 1894 and February 1895.

On 21 June 1894, The Redwood Gazette of Redwood Falls, Minnesota, reported that local banker Charles C. Chollar had just returned from a preliminary visit to Avon Park after accepting the post of cashier of the new Bank of Avon Park:

C. C. Chollar returned last Thursday from Avon Park, Florida, where he has accepted a position with the Florida Development Co., as Cashier of the Bank of Avon Park, which will open for business on October 1st. He was delighted with that part of Florida. Avon Park is beautifully situated in a township containing twenty-five clear water lakes, high rolling pine land suitable for growing oranges, lemons, grapes, pineapples and various tropical fruits. What surprised him most was the coolness of the summer, the temperature never going above 95, and cool breezes and rains which tend to moderate the heat and make it delightful at all times. Charles will be glad to give any information to those desirous of knowing something of the Land of Flowers. He brought home a number of Homeseekers, a monthly paper published in the interest of this Excelsior lake region, which he will gladly mail to any one desirous of receiving the same.[redwood-1894-06-21]

Four months later, on 16 October 1894 (page 6), the Savannah Morning News published a full report of the Florida Development Company’s annual stockholders’ meeting held at Avon Park the preceding week:

Last week the annual meeting of the stockholders of the Florida Development Company was held at Avon Park and the officers laid their reports before the stockholders for inspection. A 10 per cent. dividend was ordered. The report shows that the company has an unimpaired capital of $250,000; that there is due the company for land sold $93,704.43; that the land sales have increased 300 per cent. over last year; that a large three-story business block has been built; that a solid bank with ample capital has been established, and that a large addition to the hotel must at once be built to accommodate the vast number of land purchasers and settlers that are coming this way. The officers elected by the company are: O. M. Crosby president, N. S. C. Perkins vice president and treasurer, R. D. Hall secretary, O. B. Thatcher superintendent. During the past year the population of Avon Park has more than doubled, and now approaches nearly 1,000 people. There is not an idle person in the place who wishes to work. There is but little doubt that at least 100 buildings will be erected here before May 1, next, and the prospects for a railroad within the next year are bright.[savannah-1894-10-16]

That contemporary balance sheet corroborates Crosby’s 1923 recollection that he held roughly $96,000 in uncollected installment land contracts when the freezes struck ten weeks later: the exact receivables figure on the company’s books in October 1894 was $93,704.43.[savannah-1894-10-16] The dispatch also preserves the company’s 1894 executive slate at Avon Park: President Oliver M. Crosby, Vice President and Treasurer N. S. C. Perkins, Secretary R. D. Hall (who later served as one of the town’s officers during its 1897 municipal incorporation), and Superintendent O. R. Thacher (printed “O. B. Thatcher”).[savannah-1894-10-16]

The wooden railroad in the national press (1895–1897)

After John C. Burleigh hauled his twelve-ton Lima Shay locomotive overland from Bowling Green to Avon Park on relaid timber beams in December 1894 and the Avon Park Transportation Company organized on 5 January 1895, the Savannah Morning News reported the opening day of right-of-way construction in its issue of 20 January 1895 (page 16, under “Georgia and Florida”):

Avon Park people are building a tram railroad to Haines City. On Jan. 12 over 200 stalwart, earnest men, with axes and shovels, cleared up about three miles of the right of way through pine and palmetto for the road. The first spike was, that day, driven by Mrs. O. M. Crosby.[savannah-1895-01-20]

On 29 March 1895 the Savannah paper added that “the new tram road from Avon Park toward Haines City is being pushed. Nearly five miles are ready for the tracks already,” and on 24 June 1895 it reported the corporate structure of the Avon Park Transportation Company ($25,000 capital stock, projected forty miles due north to Haines City).[savannah-1895-03-29][savannah-1895-06-24]

Beyond Georgia and Harper’s Weekly (15 June 1895), a correspondent’s dispatch to The Manufacturers’ Record on the forty-mile wooden-railed railway between “Avon Park and Haines City” was picked up by national news syndicates and reprinted across at least twenty-four out-of-state newspapers between March 1895 and April 1897, including the New-York Tribune (5 March 1895), the Washington Evening Star (9 March 1895) and Morning Times (8 September 1895), The Redwood Gazette (14 March 1895), The San Francisco Call (7 April 1895), the Cleveland Gazette (27 April 1895), The Scranton Tribune (2 December 1895), The Lamar Register of Colorado (28 December 1895), the Williston Graphic of North Dakota (27 March 1896), and the Polish-language daily Dziennik Chicagoski of Chicago (9 April 1897).[ny-tribune-1895-03-05][morning-times-1895-09-08][scranton-1895-12-02]

Post-freeze litigation, liquidation, and recovery (1895–1900)

After the freezes of December 1894 and February 1895 halted installment payments and collapsed the Bank of Avon Park, out-of-state newspapers recorded both the company’s final promotional efforts and its judicial liquidation:

  • 19 October 1895 (The Morning News, Savannah, p. 6): “A request for summons ad respondendum in the case of Abbie R. Dodge vs the Florida Development Company, an action for the recovery of damages in the sum of $8,000, was filed in the county clerk’s office at Jacksonville Wednesday.”[savannah-1895-10-19]
  • April–July 1896 (The New Dominion, Morgantown, W.Va., p. 1): Even while under judgment in 1896, the company continued running a small standing display advertisement in northern newspapers directing homeseekers to write for information to “Fla. Development Co., Avon Park, Fla.”[new-dominion-1896-04-25]
  • 13 and 23 May 1896 (The Morning News and The Savannah Tribune): On 13 May 1896 the Morning News reported that “D. S. Parsons of Winston, N.C., has decided to open a jewelry store at Avon Park,” and ten days later The Savannah Tribune, Savannah’s Black-owned weekly, included the proposed Avon Park canning factory in its summary of new Southern industrial enterprises.[savannah-1896-05-13][savannah-tribune-1896-05-23]
  • 4 June 1896 (The Redwood Gazette, Redwood Falls, Minn.): “Advices from Avon Park, Fla., are to the effect that Charles C. Chollar is recovering from a very severe attack of illness peculiar to that locality,” placing Chollar still at Avon Park in the summer of 1896 before his removal to Arcadia.[redwood-1896-06-04]
  • 25 January and 6 February 1897 (The Morning News, Savannah, p. 6): Reported that the real estate of the Florida Development Company had been sold at a sheriff’s sale at Arcadia on the first Monday in January 1897 to Mrs. Abbie R. Dodge of Dodge & Cullens, proprietors of the New Duval Hotel in Jacksonville, to satisfy her $10,000 circuit-court judgment; that Judge Barron Phillips had confirmed the sale at Tampa on 9 January 1897 and denied the stockholders’ application for a receiver; and that the company’s personal property at Avon Park was sold on the first Monday in February 1897, leaving Mrs. Dodge the owner of 20,000 acres including the townsite, a fruit-tree nursery, a sawmill, and six cottages.[savannah-1897-01-25][savannah-1897-02-06]
  • 25 December 1898 (New York Journal and Advertiser, p. 47): Following the Florida Development Company’s liquidation, an independent New York promoter, E. D. Putney of Room 62, No. 1 Park Row, New York, advertised Avon Park lands in the Christmas issue of the New York Journal and Advertiser: “GRIP, PNEUMONIA OR MALARIA IN AVON PARK, FLORIDA? Our strawberries, peaches, pineapples, grapes, kumquats, grapefruit and oranges bring highest price. May we tell you how easily you may acquire a home in this salubrious climate? E. D. Putney, room 62, No. 1 Park row, N. Y.”[ny-journal-1898-12-25]
  • 23 June 1900 (The Savannah Morning News, p. 8): In its Florida exchange column, the Savannah paper quoted directly from O. R. Thacher’s newly established Avon Park newspaper, The South Florida Sun, proving that the paper was already in publication by June 1900 and that the town’s recovering orange groves were once again attracting commercial fruit buyers:

FLORIDA. Avon Park. South Florida Sun: The weather has been very favorable to the orange groves, and a large crop will be harvested. Already the buyers have started. James McBride sold his crop to E. A. Thomas for $5,000. W. H. Heard, Ralls, Reynolds, and S. J. Carlton have also bought several crops.[savannah-1900-06-23]

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. The Connecticut Western News, The Connecticut Western News (Salisbury, Conn.), 3 April 1889, page 2: Frank E. Sperring returns from Avon Park (1889) · newspaper
  2. O. M. Crosby, in The Sun (New York), The Sun (New York, N.Y.), 14 December 1889, page 10, Winter Resorts: Hotel Verona classified advertisement (1889) · newspaper
  3. O. M. Crosby, in The Sun (New York), The Sun (New York, N.Y.), 6 January 1890, page 5: Hotel Verona classified advertisement (1890) · newspaper
  4. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 1 December 1890, page 6: Avon Park and Marion County land syndicate (1890) · newspaper
  5. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 27 January 1891, page 6: O. M. Crosby purchases the South Florida Progress at Fort Meade (1891) · newspaper
  6. The Newtown Bee (Newtown, Conn.), The Newtown Bee (Newtown, Conn.), 6 March 1891, page 6: William J. Nichols on O. M. Crosby's Avon Park and Lake Verona (1891) · newspaper
  7. New-York Tribune, New-York Tribune, 25 September 1891, page 10: estate of a New York buyer of Avon Park land (1891) · newspaper
  8. The Sun (New York), The Sun (New York, N.Y.), 25 September 1891, page 8: Orrison M. Blunt's son and his Avon Park lot (1891) · newspaper
  9. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 29 September 1891, page 6: O. M. Crosby in London and the sale of Welshton (1891) · newspaper
  10. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 2 November 1891, page 1: Incorporation of the Florida Development Company, Limited (1891) · newspaper
  11. The Weekly Floridian, The Weekly Floridian (Tallahassee, Fla.), 7 November 1891, page 5: Organization of the Florida Development Company (1891) · newspaper
  12. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 28 August 1892: 1,000-acre land deal between O. M. Crosby and W. E. Pabor (1892) · newspaper
  13. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 3 November 1892: Prof. O. M. Crosby reports autumn settler arrivals (1892) · newspaper
  14. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 5 April 1894, page 6: Signal service thermometer at Hotel Verona (1894) · newspaper
  15. The Redwood Gazette, The Redwood Gazette (Redwood Falls, Minn.), 21 June 1894, page 5: C. C. Chollar engaged as Cashier of the Bank of Avon Park (1894) · newspaper
  16. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 19 September 1894, quoting the Fort Meade Pebble on travel to Avon Park (1894) · newspaper
  17. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 25 September 1894: O. M. Crosby and family arrive from New York on the steamship Iroquois (1894) · newspaper
  18. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 16 October 1894, page 6: Annual meeting of the stockholders of the Florida Development Company at Avon Park (1894) · newspaper
  19. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 20 January 1895, page 16: First day's work and first spike on the Avon Park tram railroad (1895) · newspaper
  20. New-York Tribune, New-York Tribune, 5 March 1895, page 6: The Avon Park and Haines City wooden railroad (1895) · newspaper
  21. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 29 March 1895, page 6: Five miles of the tram road from Avon Park toward Haines City ready for tracks (1895) · newspaper
  22. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 24 June 1895, page 6: The Avon Park Transportation Company (1895) · newspaper
  23. The Morning Times (Washington, D.C.), The Morning Times (Washington, D.C.), 8 September 1895, page 14: Superintendent John C. Burleigh and the Avon Park Transportation Company (1895) · newspaper
  24. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 19 October 1895, page 6: Abbie R. Dodge sues the Florida Development Company for $8,000 (1895) · newspaper
  25. The Scranton Tribune, The Scranton Tribune (Scranton, Pa.), 2 December 1895, page 6: Avon Park Transportation Company wooden railroad (1895) · newspaper
  26. Florida Development Company, in The New Dominion, The New Dominion (Morgantown, W.Va.), 25 April 1896, page 1: Florida Development Co., Avon Park, Fla. advertisement (1896) · newspaper
  27. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 13 May 1896, page 6: D. S. Parsons of Winston, N.C., to open a jewelry store at Avon Park (1896) · newspaper
  28. The Savannah Tribune, The Savannah Tribune (Savannah, Ga.), 23 May 1896, page 1: Southern industrial summary noting canning factory at Avon Park (1896) · newspaper
  29. The Redwood Gazette, The Redwood Gazette (Redwood Falls, Minn.), 4 June 1896: Charles C. Chollar recovering from illness at Avon Park (1896) · newspaper
  30. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 25 January 1897, page 6: Sheriff's sale of Florida Development Company real estate confirmed (1897) · newspaper
  31. The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), The Morning News (Savannah, Ga.), 6 February 1897, page 6: Mrs. Abbie R. Dodge buys the Florida Development Company's 20,000 acres at Avon Park (1897) · newspaper
  32. E. D. Putney, in New York Journal and Advertiser, New York Journal and Advertiser, 25 December 1898, page 47: E. D. Putney advertisement for Avon Park lands (1898) · newspaper
  33. The Savannah Morning News, quoting The South Florida Sun, The Savannah Morning News, 23 June 1900, page 8: Florida column quoting the South Florida Sun of Avon Park on orange crop sales (1900) · newspaper

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