“In a cluster of a wild scenery of lakes, but on the
broad hump among them, is pretty AUBURNDALE, laid out with curved and straight
avenues, like the spokes and felloes, on concentric rays, so as to utilize the
building sites.” (South Florida Railroad 1887)
Lakes
Stella (foreground) & Adriana (background) - Auburndale, FL
Not a lot could be said of Auburndale in the South
Florida Railroad travelogue of 1887 because at that time the settlement was little
more than an idea of a railroad pioneer having no connection with the firm
laying down track across his homestead. As for the 1887 descriptive brochure, this
region southwest of Kissimmee “was more well known by hunters, passing by
park-like open pines, as free of undergrowth as a trimmed lawn, or by green
coverts of the deer, and where the slender cougar lies in wait for the doe, at
the watering places.”
Kissimmee City of Orange County – for several years
the southernmost city in the United States having train service, became
Kissimmee of Osceola County on May 12, 1887. Five years had already passed since
Orange County correspondent Will Wallace Harney, representing the New Orleans
Times-Democrat, journeyed 498 miles into the Florida Everglades, departing
out of Kissimmee on a 14 day expedition down the Kissimmee River, crossing Lake
Okeechobee, and heading west on the Caloosahatchee River to the Gulf of Mexico.
James E. Ingraham had been especially interested in
Harney’s journey into the Everglades, for as President of South Florida
Railroad, Ingraham planned to be aboard the second expedition a year later, a
journey to be made in search of the best railroad routes in South Florida.
Available this FALL 2019
PINE CASTLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
WILL WALLACE HARNEY
Central
Florida’s Acclaimed Poet, Writer, Historian, Correspondent
To receive an email when the book
is available for purchase, contact
NOTE: This book is being a publication and sold by the Historical Society.
Harney had long advocated train service for central
Florida’s citrus belt, writing of plans for a Lake Monroe to Tampa Bay train as
early as 1871. He wrote on numerous occasions of attempts to connect the St.
Johns River with the Gulf of Mexico, stating in one 1877 article, “If we could
get a short railroad of a hundred miles or so connecting Orange with Tampa, it
would add greatly to the advantage of both, and would build up Hillsborough
County.”
Nearly a decade would pass before Harney’s prediction
would prove to be true, but while Will Harney of Orange County was writing his
October 1877 article, an Illinois doctor was making his way to Tallahassee,
Florida with an idea of his own.
Dr. Hartwell C. Howard came to Florida in 1876 primarily
for health reasons. Recovering from pneumonia, Florida’s climate had been what
the doctor ordered. On November 20, 1877, Dr. Howard attended a board meeting at
Tallahassee of Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund (IIF), a committee established in 1855 for the purposes
of improving Florida’s transportation. Chaired by Florida’s Governor, the IIF
was a powerful committee, except when it came to approval of post-Civil War
rail service throughout the state. (New York capitalist Francis Vose had been
granted an injunction preventing Florida from using public lands to build rail
service until his debt was resolved).
Minutes of the November 1877 IIF meeting offers
insight into Dr. Howard’s idea: “Dr. H. C. Howard, on behalf of the Gainesville,
Ocala & Charlotte Harbor Railroad, appeared before the Board and made a
proposition.” Dr. Howard’s plan was for the state to sell his railroad firm, at
five cents per acre, portions of public land on six miles on each side of
proposed railroad line, with the stipulation that the sale would not “go into
effect until the claims of Vose and others are settled.”
A group of Illinois investors, much like the folks in Orange
County, were attempting to obtain approval to build a railroad in South Florida
as early as 1877. Dr. Howard was the first President of the Charlotte Harbor
bound train, a railroad that later became Florida Southern Railroad.
Auburndale Main Street, photo by Alice E. Kaszer (1890-1975)
Proud of their long-time doctor, Champaign County,
Illinois has on file an 1887 biographical sketch of Dr. Hartwell Carver Howard
(1829-1922), which says this of the good doctor: “He has heretofore been quite
prominently identified with railroad interests.” Dr. Howard homesteaded 158
acres in Florida’s developing Citrus Belt, receiving a deed for the Polk County
land dated March 20, 1885. Dr. Howard’s property was located on the southeast
shore of Lake Ariana.
The 1887 biography of Dr. Howard offers a bit more
insight on the man: “He has also been
occupied in buying and selling Florida orange lands, having a town laid out on
his own estate there, AUBURNDALE. He
donated 80 acres of land to secure
the South Florida Railroad through
that town.”
It has been suggested, incorrectly, that Auburndale
was originally SANATORIA, and that the town was founded by a Frank R. Fuller. As
of 1887 however, both towns are shown on a Polk County map. The two separate
settlements were nearly 2 miles apart.
Edwin Monroe Howard (1857-1930), eldest son of Dr.
Howard, lived at Auburndale in 1900 with his wife, Belle (Brooks) Howard
(1862-1939). Their next-door neighbor at the time of that year’s census was Ephram
M. Baynard, a fruit grower, who in 1913 built his residence facing Lake Stella
in Auburndale at a cost of $7,500, shown below courtesy Florida Memory project.
Built
in 1913, The Baynard residence became Kersey Funeral Home
This blog series continues next Friday as the South Florida
Railroad, under Henry Plant, continues to lay track in the direction of Tampa
Bay. Next up, an Englishman lays out a town northeast of Lakeland – a town named
ACTON.
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