Origins of Lakeland Series, Parts VII and VIII

If Lakeland’s backers believed that a depot guaranteed their town’s success, however, they ignored the reality of threatened competition. The properties immediately south of Schipman’s Survey, including the Rome City railroad camp, were owned by Abraham G. Munn and John P. Morton. Wealthy businessmen based in Louisville, Kentucky, the brothers-in-law had purchased numerous tracts in peninsular Florida a few years earlier. Munn’s son Morris G. Munn, who lived in DeLand, aided them in selection of specific properties.[i]

When A. G. Munn first viewed his Polk County holdings, South Florida Railroad cars were not yet running into Lakeland, which itself was only two months old. “In February 1884, he visited the present site of the town, coming by rail to Sanitaria [Auburndale], and thence by wagon, the rails not having been laid to this point until the latter part of the same month,” a reporter later explained. Munn, pleased with the potential of what he found, ordered another son, engineer Samuel Morton Munn, to lay out an eighty-acre tract between Lakes Wire and Mirror. A competing “Town of Lakeland” resulted.[ii]

 _{[i] M. F. Hetherington, History of Polk County, Florida (St. Augustine, FL: The Record Co., 1928), 88, 295-96; “His Ledger Closed,” Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), July 20, 1889; Henry Gardener Cutler, History of Florida, Past and Present: Historical and Biographical, 3 vols. (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1923), I, 457.} 

 _{[ii] J. E. Mifflin, “The Leading Men of Lively Lakeland” and “A. G. Munn, Venerable Founder, Town of Lakeland,” Tampa Tribune, January 7, 1906, November 29, 1908; Hetherington, History of Polk County, Florida, 88, 295.} 

 _{[map] Section of 1884 map of Lakeland.} 

Munn’s Survey constituted the first shot in political, economic, and personal battles that ensured in the following years. The power of the Kentuckian’s wealth and the challenge of his New Jersey roots likely would have sufficed to alarm Cloughs, Trammells, and their Southern friends. Munn’s Survey, though, directly challenged them. It anticipated refashioning Rome City into a public park. More significantly, the plans positioned a passenger depot not at Lake Wire but adjacent to the tracks on the park’s northern edge. Munn’s Survey also called for placement of a freight depot on the northern side of the tracks a short distance to the southwest.[i]

Initially, the Southern faction appeared to hold an advantage over the arguably Northern intruders. Its members and supporters already were in place and selling lots. A few buildings began to rise. Plus, the faction had opened negotiations for the Lake Wire depot. By June, they had clinched their deal.[ii]

 _{[i] “Lakeland, Polk Co., Florida, S. M. Munn, Surveyor, February 1884,” Lakeland History Room, Lakeland (FL) Public Library.}  

 _{[ii] “Lakeland, Polk’s Business Center.”}  

 _{[image] Abraham Godwin Munn (1819-1909)} 

Lakeland by then had secured victory over rival Medulla, to its south. About the time in December 1883 that the name Lakeland had been agreed upon, L. M. Ballard had moved his store and the Medulla post office to Lake Wire’s south side. Some resentful locals demanded a Lakeland post office, but it took them until May 1884 to gain approval. Ballard decided meantime to remain in place. He continued to run his store. In June, he also founded the town’s first newspaper, the Lakeland News.[i]

Events that followed upon Ballard’s removal from the post office and his founding of the News reflected broader community frictions then growing. In this case, the emotions ran between old timers and newcomers. First, Postmaster Francis L. Brooks, a new settler, arbitrarily refused to accept the News as second-class mail. Ballard reacted in fury. “This engendered a bad feeling in the heart of the editor against the new postmaster,” C. D. Clough recalled, “and the two gentlemen came near mixing in a fight on several occasions.” The feud persisted.[ii]

 _{[i] C. D. Clough, “Early Days of Lakeland and the Career of a Newspaper,” Tampa Times, June 28, 1912; Martha F. Sawyer, “Lakeland: Celebrating ‘A Century of Pride,’” Polk County Historical Quarterly 11 (December 1984), 2.} 

 _{[ii] Clough, “Early Days of Lakeland and the Career of a Newspaper”; “Sad Death of Dr. F. L. Brooks,” Tampa Tribune, July 5, 1903.} 

 _{[image] L.M. Ballard's Lakeland newspaper office and store} 

Community divisions were multiplying. Munn and Morton people clashed with allies of Trammell and Clough. Schipman’s Survey competed with Munn’s. Oldtimers confronted newcomers. To that mix could be added racial tensions. African Americans dominated the greater community in population terms, a fact that left many white Southerners uneasy. Perceived provocations sometimes led to violent incidents. Black men proved more than willing to defend themselves and their families.[i]

Although he described conditions as they existed in late 1885, a white Indianan articulated “the race issue” at Lakeland in terms that had held meaning for some time. “The ‘colored man and brother’ has a tough time of it in some parts of this state,” he began. “Around here he is strictly a servant and is rigidly kept in a servant’s place. Whenever a negro and white man, especially if the latter happens to be a policeman or marshal, get into a dispute or quarrel, one, or both, of them, is almost sure to be killed.”[ii]

The correspondent continued: “The negro has been buffeted and bulldozed so much that when he gets into trouble with a white man he does not wait to be assaulted, but at once lays the white man out. He has been by experience learned that if he does not ‘get the drop’ on the white man the result will be a dead ‘coon. Believing it is necessary to their own welfare they do not hesitate to kill an officer who comes up to arrest them for any misdemeanor.”[iii]

Boom times constituted the factor that kept Lakeland from erupting along its fault lines. “We found a new town springing up in the woods,” an arrival noted in July 1884. “Four months ago there was not a tree amiss here; to-day we have about forty houses up and half as many more under contract. There are four saw mills running all the time trying to supply the demand for lumber, and failing to do so.”[iv]

 _{[i] “Floridiana,” Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), March 11, 1885.} 

 _{[ii] “Land of Flowers,” Princeton Clarion-Leader (IN), January 7, 1886.} 

 _[iii] Ibid. 

 _{[iv] “Tropical Notes,” Princeton Clarion-Leader (Princeton, IN), August 7, 1884.} 

 _{[image] Sawmill located near Lakeland 1890s} 

The allure of ready money had drawn Eppes Tucker from Medulla, as it had Moses Ballard. Tucker fanned fires of excitement back in Alabama with letters to local newspapers. A reader advised, “I was especially pleased with the communication of E. Tucker, which was read with great interest by very many in this country and who have confidence in and would like to know the wealth and comfort to be afforded in the grand and glowing possibilities of South Florida, and especially Polk county.”[i]

John W. Trammel, confident of his own and his partners’ triumph, too took up his pen in praise of Lakeland’s bright future. Noting four railroad towns then on the rise in Polk, Trammell insisted, “Lakeland has the lead.” He added, “It is in the midst of eight beautiful clear water lakes, is surrounded with fertile lands, and has a rapidly growing and enlightened population.” After reading of the town’s advances, a prospective settler waxed, “The progressive town of Lakeland is entering on the dewy morning of its glory.” [ii]

At that point, the power of wealth began to tell.

 _{[i] “As Others See Us” and LaFayette Sun (LaFayette, AL), August 6, 1884.} 

 _{[ii] “As Others See Us” and “Polk County, Florida,” LaFayette Sun (LaFayette, AL), August 6, 27, 1884.} 

 _{[image] C. Eppes Tucker, Sr (1844-1926)} 

On August 28, 1884, a Polk County man detailed to the Florida Times-Union, the state’s only daily newspaper, the phenomenon that then was Lakeland. “No place within the county has made such rapid growth as Lakeland,” he declared. “One year ago where this village now stands was vacant land, while now it is selling at $100 to $300 per lot.”[i]

The man added: “After the completion of the [rail]road the site was selected by Mr. Munn of Louisville, Ky., as very suitable for his operations in the building of a town. The Lakeland Improvement Company was formed by Northern capitalists, the site surveyed, streets cleared, lots put on the market and building at once commenced.”[ii]

 This apparently routine letter represented a public relations salvo, an early round in a fight to claim credit for Lakeland’s birth and leverage its affairs. The struggle persisted despite the best efforts of the December 1883 initiators of Schipman’s Survey of the Town of Lakeland. It ended ultimately with latecomers Abraham G. Munn and his brother-in-law John P. Morton firmly wresting the honor from Clough and Trammell family members and their mostly Southern allies. The Times-Union soon acknowledged, “[Lakeland] has wealthy men interested in its success, who will spare no money towards its advancement.”[iii]

 _{[i] “Polk County Heard From,” Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), August 28, 1884.} 

 _[ii] Ibid. 

 _{[iii] “Lakeland,” Florida Times-Union (World’s Fair Edition) (Jacksonville, FL), February 1885.} 

 _{[map] 1884 Munn's Survey of Lakeland} 

The contest had begun in February 1884 when Munn first visited Lakeland, ordered his son Samuel M. Munn to survey a town site, and directed creation of an appropriate business framework. Munn’s Survey resulted along with the Lakeland Improvement Company’s incorporation on February 4 by Munn, Samuel A. Harwell, and Charles E. Hillman. “The object of the corporation is the laying out a town site—with streets, avenues and lots,” the charter detailed, “the sale of the town lots so marked and mapped—and the purchase and sale of lands in the county of Polk and elsewhere in said state, for profit and for internal improvement.”[i]

At first, Schipman’s Survey backers, having begun their labors sooner and already well known in the community, enjoyed the upper hand. They aimed to populate their community mostly with fellow Southerners, notably through correspondence published in their home state of Alabama. Their June success in obtaining from South Florida Railroad approval for a temporary depot at Lake Wire seemed to confirm ultimate triumph.[ii]

Munn and Lakeland Improvement Company officials, on the other hand, envisioned something grander. They saw a community of affluent small businessmen and citrus growers drawn in good part from Northern states. At the very moment in summer 1884 when the LIC’s competition sensed victory, signs—if carefully read--began to suggest otherwise.

 _{[i] “Notice of Incorporation,” Bartow Informant (Bartow, FL), February 9, 1884.} 

 _{[ii] “This Busy City of the Lakes Handles Vast Annual Fruit, Trucking and Railroad Trade,” Tampa Tribune. November 29, 1908; “As Others See It” and “Polk County, Florida,” LaFayette Sun (LaFayette, AL), August 6, 27, 1884; “The Land of Flowers,” Opelika Times (Opelika, AL), October 24, 1884} 

 _{[image] Lakeland's Tremont House, circa 1890} 

In late July, for example, a party of settlers arrived to discover that “we are the only Indiana family in the town.” Its members took comfort, though, in the area’s diversity. “The town is composed of a good class of people from north, south, east and west,” the family head recorded. “Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, New York, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama are the principal states represented.”[i]

The Indianan went on: “Many of our friends may wish to know how we like Florida. We are pleased with it. While there are some disadvantages to contend with we feel that the fine, healthy climate more than compensates us for all that we are deprived of in the way of the luxuries of life.”[ii]

 _{[i] “Tropical Topics,” Princeton Clarion-Leader (Princeton, IN), August 7, 1884.} 

 _[ii] Ibid. 

 _{[image] Land Office, circa 1900} 

The LIC comprehended that key to the town’s future and that of the corporation was control of the South Florida RR passenger and freight depots. Munn’s Survey proposed to locate the facilities along the tracks above the city park (Munn Park) that replaced the Rome City construction camp. Thus, in late August the Times-Union’s Polk County correspondent had noted, “Work will be commenced on a depot, which, it is said, will be one of the finest on the South Florida railroad.”[i]

The depot question became evermore crucial in fall 1884. Lakeland was named headquarters for Florida Southern Railroad construction crews building a north-south line down Peace River. The FSR aimed to share the South Florida’s tracks from Lake Wire to Lake Mirror. Hundreds of black workers crowded into hastily erected camps, and the local economy soared. “The building rage is unprecedented,” the Times-Union reported on November 27. It added, “The people of Lakeland will consider the advisability of incorporating the town Thursday night.”[ii]

The move to incorporate originated, it seems, in the Schipman’s Survey faction’s anxieties about losing control of the situation in the midst of growth. The LIC, although it had not yet received formal approval for a depot, had initiated construction of an impressive structure. A winter visitor described it as “the finest railway station on the road.”[iii]

 _{[i] “Lakeland, Polk Co., Florida, S. M. Munn, Surveyor, February 1884,” Lakeland History Room, Lakeland (FL) Public Library; “Polk County Heard From,” Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), August 28, 1884.} 

 _{[ii] “Floridiana,” Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), November 27, 1884.} 

 _{[iii] “Polk County Heard From” and “Floridiana,” Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL), August 28, November 27, 1884; “Mr. Whilldin on the Wing,” Courier-Post (Camden, NJ), April 24, 1885.} 

 _{[image] Lakeland's Railway Depot, 1890} 

The Cloughs and Trammells determined to strike before the new facility could be sanctioned. Thus, they staged incorporation debates on November 28 and again on December 15. LIC supporters apparently acted to gauge support by proposing a name change to Munnville. Lakeland prevailed, suggesting Southern predominance. Alabamian Eppes Tucker then prepared a suitable charter. Voting was slated for January 1, 1885.[i]

Scant details have come down to us about the incorporation vote, held at the recently erected school house. Thirty-four men cast ballots within what must have been a strained atmosphere. Twelve opposed incorporation and, it appears, all other actions. The outcome could have been predicted from the decision to reject Munnville as the community’s name. Schipman’s Survey backer John W. Trammell emerged triumphant as mayor.[ii]

 _{[i] Lakeland City Minutes, Book 1 (1885-1899), 1-2, Special Collections, Lakeland Public Library; Martha F. Sawyer, “Lakeland: Celebrating ‘a Century of Pride’,” Polk County Historical Quarterly 11 (December 1984), 2; “This Busy City of the Lakes Handles Vast Annual Fruit, Trucking and Railroad Trade,” Tampa Tribune, November 29, 1908; Harry Gardner Cutler, History of Florida, Past and Present: Historical and Biographical, 3 vols. (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1923), I, 457-58.} 

 _{[ii] Lakeland City Minutes, Book 1 (1885-1899), 3; M. F. Hetherington, History of Polk County, Florida (St. Augustine, FL: The Record Co., 1928), 90; Cutler, History of Florida, 457-58; Sawyer, “Lakeland,” 3.} 

 _{[image] City Minutes, January 1, 1885}