The Historical Society of Avon ParkAVON PARK, FL · EST. 1886
Menu
Admin Sign-In

Avon Park in the outside press, 1916-1941

No Highlands County newspaper of this period is digitized. The Highlands County Pilot, the Avon Park Times, and the Avon Park Sun survive, if at all, on microfilm in Gainesville and in the Depot Museum’s own cases, so what follows comes from papers published somewhere else — Punta Gorda, Ocala, Quincy, Brooksville, Washington, and in two cases New Jersey and Arizona — that had some reason to mention Avon Park.

That is a real limitation and it shapes what turns up. Out-of-town papers print three kinds of Avon Park news: people from elsewhere who visited it, statewide round-up columns that list it, and the St. Louis Cardinals. There is no local politics here, no city council, no obituaries. But the round-up columns are more useful than they look, because they are the only running record of what was being built in the town.

Bankers before the boom

The town’s banking history between the Bank of Avon Park of 1894 and the failures of 1929 has been close to blank. Three notices fill part of it.

In December 1916 the DeSoto County commissioners recorded the banks that had filed notice of intention to qualify as county depositories. The list runs: “The Punta Gorda Bank, Bank of Sebring, First National Bank of Punta Gorda, The First National Bank of Avon Park, State Bank of Zolfo.”[pgh-1916-12-14] That puts a First National Bank of Avon Park in existence in 1916, two years earlier than the 1918 date otherwise on record for it, and while Avon Park was still in DeSoto County.

Two Avon Park bankers are named in passing:

  • C. A. Skipper, “banker of Avon Park and Zolfo,” in Punta Gorda on business in August 1919.[pgh-1919-08-28] The Skipper family is known through Gabriel Skipper, a former postmaster of Avon Park; a DeSoto County commissioner named D. L. Skipper sat on the board that approved the depository list in 1916.[pgh-1916-12-14]
  • C. E. Lanier, “banker of Avon Park,” in Punta Gorda in December 1920, and mentioned there again in September 1919.[pgh-1920-12-16]

Neither man is recorded anywhere else.

The station agent and the murder plot, 1922

The Ocala Banner’s state round-up of 21 July 1922:

A. W. Fisher, Avon Park station agent, and Henry Ray, Tampa truck driver, are under arrest for conspiracy to murder Mrs. Rosa Newsome of Tampa. They employed one J. W. Gorily to do the work, who told the plot to the detectives and they in turn caught Fisher and Ray dead to rights.[ocala-1922-07-21]

That is the whole item. What became of the case is unknown, and the name may be spelled otherwise — the OCR is imperfect and “Gorily” is certainly wrong. It is recorded here because it is the only known criminal case involving a named Avon Park official for the period, and because Fisher held one of the town’s more visible jobs.

What a visitor saw in 1925

A Washington Evening Star travel piece of October 1925, describing the drive down the ridge:

The towns one passes through on a ride down this State’s spinal column are clean, spick-and-span little towns with wide streets and parking of green grass and flowers placed with foresight in the center between the stores. They are small towns — Haines City, Lake Wales, Avon Park and Sebring. None of them exceeds 5,000 population.[star-1925-10-23]

“Parking of green grass and flowers placed with foresight in the center between the stores” is the Mile Long Mall, described by an outsider two years after it was planted, and grouped with the same feature in the neighboring towns rather than treated as unique.

The boom, and a name that turns up again

In May 1926, eight months after the boom broke, a New Jersey weekly reported a visit from S. Colquitt Pardee, president of the Glenada Hills Land Company of Avon Park, Florida, to New Hope, Pennsylvania, where D. B. Oblinger and his son Clinton were his partners in the development.[lambertville-1926-05-06] Pardee’s line was the standard one of that spring:

boom inflations in Florida are being eliminated and … solid values are at last coming into their own … In the beginning of 1926 … the real construction work in Florida began.[lambertville-1926-05-06]

Two things follow. The Glenada Hills Land Company was an Avon Park land company selling into Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And S. Colquitt Pardee is almost certainly the father of S. Colquitt Pardee, Jr., the Avon Park lawyer who twenty-five years later argued for the city council in Gough v. State ex rel. Sauls. A boom-time land promoter’s son was the town’s lawyer in 1951.

The hurricane of September 1926

Avon Park is not recorded as damaged; it is recorded as helping. The Associated Press despatch from Jacksonville on 20 September, two days after the Great Miami Hurricane:

Ten trains bearing foodstuffs, medical supplies, water and facilities for housing refugees headed into the storm area last night … Trains from Lakeland, Avon Park, Tampa, Sanford and Sebring put out for the Lake Okeechobee region, where a death toll of more than a hundred had been reported at Moore Haven.[star-1926-09-20]

Moore Haven, sixty miles south, lost several hundred people when the Lake Okeechobee dyke failed. Avon Park sent one of the five relief trains, organized within hours alongside Sebring and volunteer fire, Legion, and medical personnel (see The 1926 Hurricane Relief Train to Moore Haven).

The Cardinals, 1927 to 1929

Head Field itself is covered elsewhere; what the outside press adds is the terms and the texture.

The move was news, and it was thought odd. A syndicated column in November 1926: “The St. Louis Cardinals will train at Avon Park, Fla., next season instead of at San Antonio, Tex. It is the exception for a team to change training quarters after the winning of a pennant. Most big league managers are decidedly superstitious.”[douglas-1926-11-09]

It was meant to last. By March 1927 the trade press was reporting that the Cardinals would return to Avon Park “for the next three years.”[star-1927-03-21] They stayed exactly three: 1927, 1928, 1929.

Washington came down to play them, and the games were at Avon Park. The Evening Star’s John B. Keller filed from Avon Park on 21 March 1927 for a two-game series, noting in the same column that Sam Rice, Clark Griffith and Nick Altrock had been on the golf links — the Pinecrest course, in its first full season.[star-1927-03-21] On 8 March 1928 the Grapefruit League season opened at Avon Park, Senators against Cardinals, and Denman Thompson of the Star filed from “this picturesque little Winter resort.”[star-1928-03-08]

And by 1929 the camp was big. Brian Bell of the Associated Press, writing from Avon Park in March 1929 under Billy Southworth’s first spring as manager, describes a camp “reinforced by more than a score of players from the St. Louis baseball” chain — so many that the athletes “have so much to do they take lunch at Avon Park field.”[star-1929-03-06]

Building through the slump, 1930

The Florida Weekly Industrial Review, a syndicated column of construction notices carried by small Florida weeklies, records three Avon Park jobs in 1930 — in the second year of the Depression and the fifth of the bust:

Date Notice
19 June 1930 “Avon Park — Work started on 300,000-box packing house by American Fruit Growers, Inc., costing $50,000.”[brooksville-1930-06-19]
31 July 1930 “Avon Park — Simmons and Gifford received contract for construction of … Lat Maxey packing house.”[brooksville-1930-07-31]
11 September 1930 “At Avon Park, Highlands county, a new crate mill will begin capacity operations tomorrow. The sawmill department was started last week to provide material for other sections.”[gadsden-1930-09-11]

The September notice sits inside a statewide story reporting that “Polk and Highlands counties fruitmen alone have let contracts totaling $1,500,500 for the construction of new packing houses and additions to others” against an expected sixty-million-box crop.[gadsden-1930-09-11] The land boom was dead and the citrus industry was building.

The dollar figure in the July notice is unreadable in the scan and is left out here rather than guessed.

The county’s finances in 1932

A Hernando County tax-league officer held Highlands County up as an example, and a Brooksville paper printed the figures:

The principal towns in that county are Sebring and Avon Park. The population in 1930 was 9,188. The bonded debt of the county at January 1st, 1932, was given as $1,071,660.25, not including district or school bonds.[bsun-1932-08-26]

The argument being made was that Highlands County “occupies a very envious position among Florida counties” because its commissioners had “managed the county business in such a way that the people are paying their taxes,” keeping running expenses and teachers’ salaries paid up.[bsun-1932-08-26] That is a partisan claim by a taxpayers’ league in another county, but the debt figure and the date are hard numbers, and they belong beside the account elsewhere of Avon Park’s own municipal bond troubles. The 9,188 population figure is slightly wrong — the census gives 9,192.

The Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs at Avon Park, March 1933

The Federation held its thirty-ninth annual convention at Avon Park from 14 to 17 March 1933, and the resolution it passed there was reprinted across the state. Resolution No. 14 set the State Road Department’s new budget of more than $14,000,000, adopted at Daytona Beach on 7 March, against the fact that “schools in some sections of our state have already closed and many will be forced to close this month and next before completing their full term because of the shortage in the anticipated state funds.”[gadsden-1933-03-23]

A statewide convention of that size in the depth of the Depression means Avon Park still had the hotel capacity the boom had built, and was using it.

The Avon Park Times existed, and here is the proof

The Avon Park Times is named among the Depot Museum’s holdings but is absent from the Library of Congress’s newspaper catalogue. It was a real paper with an editorial page that other Florida editors read and quoted. Three dated reprints:

  • 23 March 1933 — an editorial parable about the national economy: “The nation had been very sick for many months. A new doctor was called in. He advised an immediate operation. The patient improved from then on and is now sitting up singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.’ — Avon Park Times.”[brooksville-1933-03-23]
  • 14 June 1934 — “It is unusual for a state officer to receive so much favorable comment on the conduct of his office as is accorded to Col. J. M. Lee through the press of the state for the manner in which he is making good as state comptroller. Service is the watchword of his organization. — Avon Park Times.”[brooksville-1934-06-14]
  • 6 February 1941 — a one-line filler: “Even the bills of Xmas are beginning to be forgotten. — The Avon Park Times.”[brooksville-1941-02-06]

So the Avon Park Times was publishing from at least March 1933 to at least February 1941.

The 1934 item is worth more than its length. J. M. Lee of Avon Park, Highlands County’s member of the Florida House of Representatives in 1927 and 1929, went on to become Comptroller of the State of Florida, and his home-town paper was cheering him on.[brooksville-1934-06-14] That makes him the most senior state officer Avon Park has produced.

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. The Punta Gorda Herald (Punta Gorda, Fla.), December Meeting of County Commissioners, The Punta Gorda Herald, 14 December 1916, page 1 (1916)
  2. The Punta Gorda Herald (Punta Gorda, Fla.), Local Items, The Punta Gorda Herald, 28 August 1919, page 7 (1919)
  3. The Punta Gorda Herald (Punta Gorda, Fla.), Local Items, The Punta Gorda Herald, 16 December 1920, page 5 (1920)
  4. The Ocala Banner (Ocala, Fla.), State News, The Ocala Banner, 21 July 1922, page 4 (1922)
  5. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 October 1925, page 14 — the ridge towns (1925)
  6. The Lambertville Record (Lambertville, N.J.), Florida Is Ponce De Leon's Dream Come True, The Lambertville Record (Lambertville, N.J.), 6 May 1926, page 3 (1926)
  7. Associated Press, in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Trains Carry Aid to Stricken Area, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 20 September 1926, page 5 (1926)
  8. Douglas Daily Dispatch (Douglas, Ariz.), Douglas Daily Dispatch (Douglas, Ariz.), 9 November 1926, page 6 — the Cardinals to train at Avon Park (1926)
  9. John B. Keller, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Nationals at Avon Park for Pair of Contests With World Champion Cardinals, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 21 March 1927, page 26 (1927)
  10. Denman Thompson, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Veteran Griff Pitchers in Fine Form, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 8 March 1928, page 36, datelined Avon Park (1928)
  11. Brian Bell, Associated Press, in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Southworth Keeping Cardinals Busy, Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 6 March 1929, page 30, datelined Avon Park (1929)
  12. The Brooksville Journal (Brooksville, Fla.), Florida Weekly Industrial Review, The Brooksville Journal, 19 June 1930, page 5 (1930)
  13. The Brooksville Journal (Brooksville, Fla.), Florida Weekly Industrial Review, The Brooksville Journal, 31 July 1930, page 3 (1930)
  14. Gadsden County Times (Quincy, Fla.), Packing Houses Plan Many Improvements To Handle Citrus Crop, Gadsden County Times, 11 September 1930, page 13 (1930)
  15. The Brooksville Sun (Brooksville, Fla.), Highlands Co. In Fine Shape Financially, The Brooksville Sun, 26 August 1932, page 1 (1932)
  16. Gadsden County Times (Quincy, Fla.), Federation Women's Clubs Ask Adequate Aid Public Schools, Gadsden County Times, 23 March 1933, page 3 (1933)
  17. The Brooksville Journal (Brooksville, Fla.), Editorial page, The Brooksville Journal, 23 March 1933, page 2, quoting the Avon Park Times (1933)
  18. The Brooksville Journal (Brooksville, Fla.), Editorial page, The Brooksville Journal, 14 June 1934, page 2, quoting the Avon Park Times on Comptroller J. M. Lee (1934)
  19. The Brooksville Journal (Brooksville, Fla.), Editorial page, The Brooksville Journal, 6 February 1941, page 2, quoting the Avon Park Times (1941)

Something here wrong, or incomplete? The Society would rather know. Tell a volunteer.

Have a question about this record?

← Back to collection

Ask A.P.

Ask the archive

    Try asking:

    0 / 500

    A.P. answers only from the Society's own archive and cites what it used. Questions are not linked to you; search history is stored on your device only (how it works).Ask a volunteer for anything it cannot answer.