Oliver Crosby was the founder of Avon Park, FL.
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 11 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 47
OLIVER CROSBY RELATES STORY OF
RISE OF AVON PARK AND FIRST FALL
(Special to The Tribune)
AVON PARK, March 10. ~ While Henry B. Plant and Henry Flagler were dreaming of their tourist hotels along the east and west coasts, Oliver Marvin Crosby was already building a resort hotel in Avon Park and the story of the erection of this structure - a thirty-five room building - and the filling of it the first season although the new born community was thirty miles from a railroad, was interestingly told in audience of several hundred Avon Parkers Tuesday night by the founder of Avon Park - an intrepid Connecticut Yankee who came to Osceola's court back in 1883. Mr. Crosby told of the trials and tribulations of community building when sheer forest was converted into the beginnings of a prosperous little city that is now surrounded by more than 12,000 acres of groves. He told the story of the rise of Avon Park and the first fall, from which it recovered, though the misfortune sent him north broke. The story of the tangled land titles was explained - treacherous associates, and faint hearted ones, having complicated his affairs so that he was unable to unravel them following the misfortunes of 1895. Mr. Crosby, who is a resident of Pittsburgh, hasn't seen Avon Park since he left it under the depression of 1893-96 - twenty-eight years ago, and though he was shown pictures and slides before coming back he walks about the thriving little city and marvels at the wonders wrought in three scant decades.
Mr. Crosby told his story at a "home coming gathering" arranged for him by the woman's club and the board of trade when it was learned he was at the Hotel Avon - the Crosby's folly of 1889. Before introducing the speaker, W. M. Reck introduced Mrs. Bessie Mickler who sang two selections sweetly, being accompanied by Miss Myrtle Connoley.
Gets His Information
Getting back to the beginning - Mr. Crosby opened his reminiscences with his arrival in Florida in 1883. He called on Captain Admas, the Disston representative at Jacksonville and asked him, "Captain, what is the prettiest township you have in all Florida?"
"The captain shot back, 'thirty-three twenty-eight'," said Mr. Crosby, "and I found that this township, with its twenty-six lakes and scores of high hills was famous throughout Florida even in those days as 'thirty-three twenty-eight'."
He described his ride by boat to Sanford and over a narrow gauge railroad to Tampa, "which was then boasting - mind you, boasting - of a fifteen hundred population. My how it has changed."
He took another branch road to Bartow and secured a two-horse buggy, piled in two saddles and grub and hit it for 'Thirty-three twenty-eight' with a guide. At the end of the trail they saddled the horses and continued their trip by compass and horseback. He told of the magnificent view as he rode up the rise west of what is now Avon Park and from the summit looked across Lake Tulane which he named, and then across more woods and the vision that the larger Lake Lotela made on the landscape. The camp built on Tulane was headquarters for months.
To William King, whom he met on a trip from England, he gives the honor of being the first real settler here. Mr. King was accompanied by a Mr. Dewey but the latter left after a few months. Mr. King, now chairman of the county commissioners and member of the Avon Park band which played the welcoming ode to the guest of the evening.
Bought Township
He told of buying the township with a friend. Before the two year contract for purchase had expired he had endorsed his friend's notes so heavily that he considered continuance of the partnership hopeless. He went to Hamilton Disston to seek renewal of the contract and was refused renewal as a firm, but Mr. Disston gave a new contract to Mr. Crosby personally. This was about 1886.
For two years he worked. He told of being hunted through the woods by three dissatisfied young men, who later begged forgiveness and then burned down the schoolhouse. With things progressing better he opened an "immigration office" in New York and invested all he had, preparing for a big year just as the yellow fever broke out in its last gasp in the United States. The quarantine almost ruined his business and in this crisis he secured promise of financial assistance from Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay, a hat manufacturing firm at Danbury, Conn. They were to put in $15,000 each against his property, and he was to build the hotel and put the proposition through.
With the hotel half completed, his partners became caught in a financial tight and dropped out. The money stopped suddenly in August when they had put in only $17,000 of the promised $45,000. He forestalled labor trouble with the building of the hotel by borrowing $1,000 from George Frost, of garter fame, and by pushing sales managed to complete the hotel, known widely as "Crosby's folly" by winter.
He filled it up at once - the entire thirty-five rooms, and then was about to turn a party of fifteen back north at Fort Meade when his wife decided that the attic could be converted into rooms and with the help of the carpenters turned the trick. Rates at the hotel were $1 per day.
Interesting Facts
Turning aside to discuss ways and means - Mr. Crosby gave some very interesting facts regarding the early day development ideas and plans. "How did I do it?" he said. "I framed a little advertisement, or series of them, none over 25 lines, and none less. I told my advertising agent to put it in as many publications as he could buy for $100 per line. In four years I spent $25,000 in advertising and each time we ran an ad it cost $2,500.
"But it brought results. I kept the hotel filled continually and in one year we sold 843 contracts. Before the freeze, which has so widely advertised the recuperative power of Florida, there were 600 acres of young groves planted and more than 100 families living at Avon Park which was perhaps the biggest town in Florida thirty miles from a railroad.
His plan? One dollar down and one dollar per month. He sold one-acre lots close into town for $25 - one of the same acres that sold a few days ago for $3,000. They were paid for in two years under his contract.
When the Times-Union was boasting of 8,500 circulation, and Colonel W. F. Stovall was known in Florida journalistic circles as the "cub reporter", Mr. Crosby was editor of the Florida Homeseeker with a circulation of 10,000. And herein hangs another tale. The troubles of publishing a newspaper in those days when the jealousy of Fort Meade, where he had his printing plant, forced suspension and removal to Avon Park at an excessive cost. People at Fort Meade, he said, also cost him a sawmill, when they pictured Avon Park as "that swamp" to a gang of six lumbermen with a portable mill which he had bought in Connecticut and shipped down.
John Wanamaker, then postmaster-general, took away the second class postal privileges, but a written plea by Mr. Crosby brought restoration. Then when Admas came in with Cleveland's inauguration the low rate was withdrawn again, which led to the employment of a Dr. Blue who began editing the Avon Park Idea which was published until 1896.
His Undoing
Following the failure of the Beckerle, Schuldice and Fay assistance, Mr. Crosby said he enlisted the aid of a young man named Deerlove through H. P. Davidson, whose military academy Deerlove was attending. The man was supposed to have inherited a fortune, but claimed he couldn't realize on securities. To tide the development over he gave Mr. Crosby two notes for $5000 each for stock in the company, which he said he knew he could meet. But he never did. The discounting of those notes, confident of the associate's honesty, was "my undoing", said Mr. Crosby. The notes were not paid and "I had to mortgage the hotel to meet one and borrow from Mrs. Dodge to meet the other."
Then Deerlove tried to buy the Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay interests and failing, came to Fort Meade, according to Mr. Crosby, and camped along the trail to Avon Park where they intercepted prospective settlers "and poisoned their minds against the development."
Incorporation as the Florida Development Company followed the promise of $75,000 assistance from an English publisher who fell in love with the town after being brought here by Mr. Crosby. Bank failures in London spoiled those plans, leaving the young promoter high and dry again.
He had organized a bank and the town was booming in 1894. That year was the greatest in the history of the development. Then came the freeze which merely proved that Florida was here to stay. But it was a dark blue beginning for 1885. Panic stricken the people started a run on the bank. Throwing his private fortune into the breach Mr. Crosby saved the bank, but broke himself.
Taking over the bank's assets he had $96,000 in paper that had been good, and owed only $26,000. His holdings were sold under the hammer to pay those debts and he left here with a $10 bill and a promise to his family to send for them as soon as he could raise the funds.
Refused Big Job
Two years previously the East Coast officials had offered him the position as development agent. He had refused. He now applied to the late Mr. Parrott, who sent him to Flagler. He found the millionaire just opening the first of the Palm Beach hotels - eight years after the Avon.
Mr. Flagler told J. E. Ingraham to start him out and they went to what was to be a new community - "but I couldn't do it," Mr. Crosby said. "After seeing the real Florida. I couldn't bring myself to sell that scrub woods."
He went to New York on a pass - landing there with $2. He finally thought of his life insurance policy and managed to cash $710 on it. He sought a job with the company and worked it for several years, and writing in an insurance paper on various topics. His articles attracted attention of a Pittsburgh company which employed him to instruct their agents in his system.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months, straightening out title tangles as best she could. He has been teaching psychology in the Pittsburgh schools until he joined the sales force of the Scenic Highlands Development Company a few months ago.
His aim, he told the crowd in closing, "is a five acre grove on which I can spend my last days, and a grave in the little cemetery I donated to your town."
Three cheers for Crosby, proposed by Mr. Reck were heartily given.
Mr. Crosby will be here several days before going to Tampa and St. Petersburg, after which he will return north to resume his work for Avon Park, to the up-building of which, "I plan to devote the remaining days of my life."
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 15 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 15
Crosby's Return to Avon Park Inspires Laudatory Comments
Ernest B. Simmons, of Frostproof, in a letter to the editor of The Tribune, calls to mind some of the incidents of the time not recalled in the interview published with Oliver M. Crosby upon his return to Avon Park. Mr. Simmons takes occasion to praise both Mr. Crosby and his wife, both of whom worked so loyally and earnestly to make good situations growing out of the disastrous freezes of the nineties.
His letter follows:
"Editor Tribune: The account on page 47 of last Sunday's Tribune of Oliver M. Crosby's return to Avon Park, recalls to one, who lived in a neighboring community in those days, some things untold by Mr. Crosby in the interview as published in The Tribune."
"After the 'Big Freeze' of 1894 the hundreds of small investors were told that the like had never happened before and probably never would happen again. Then came the more disastrous freeze of 1895 which caught the trees in the midst of a tender growth. Hundreds of investors stopped paying on their contracts, a run was started on the bank as Mr. Crosby stated, and not only was his entire fortune swept away in his efforts to save the bank and make good on all his promises, but those who he had set up and put in positions to make good turned against their benefactor and united with his enemies in his undoing."
"The part not fully shown in Mr. Crosby's account of the disaster, was Mrs. Crosby's unselfish and heroic work in straightening out the tangle," he states briefly. "Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months straightening out little tangles as best she could." "That simple statement does not tell half of it. Deprived of her beloved husband's society, and in a critical and unfriendly neighborhood, this splendid woman spent nearly two years, writing letters to contract holders, dealing with the land company, and by tact, persuasion, persistence, and sustained by splendid will power and Christian purpose to see that the faith was kept with all the investors, managed to straighten out and give titles to all the contract holders who paid up."
"Meantime she kept to her own house, except when called out on business, worked all day and into the night, day after day. During this time Mrs. Crosby was seen very little in public for she felt deeply the unjust criticism of Mr. Crosby by the people of Avon Park. While she was working away to save the investments of hundreds of people of moderate means who had invested in Avon Park lands on the installment-payment plan, Mr. Crosby was selling life insurance in the north and out of this living was sending his wife money for her expenses in Avon Park."
"I happen to know of some of the discouragements Mrs. Crosby had to face, of the looks of scorn, to say nothing of the open criticism, she had to brave. Even her unselfish efforts to save investors were looked upon with suspicion and obstacles were thrown in her way which would have disheartened anyone less purposeful. I never knew another mortal to battle so courageously nor against such heavy odds as this noble woman. The town of Avon Park could do herself no higher honor than to erect a library, monument or some public structure in the name of this noble woman who has come back to live in peace on the scenes of her heroic struggles in 1897 and 1898. If honor is due - and it is due - to the broken hearted dreamer and builder of 1896, it is still more due to "The Woman Who Understands", who so nobly stood by his side, believed in him when all was lost and held up his hands. Avon Park is rich in having these splendid people once more their citizens."
ERNEST B. SIMMONS.
Frostproof, Fla., March, 11, 1923
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Wednesday, 9 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
O. M. Crosby, Founder Of Avon Park, Dies in St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, March 8 (AP) ~ Oliver M. Crosby 77, founder of Avon Park, died today at the Pinellas county home where he had been for several months. Crosby first came to Florida in 1889 and purchased an entire township where he later founded Avon Park named after his home town, Ben Avon, Pa. Ten years after he bought the townsite, the place was transformed into a wonderland of orange groves and homes.
In the first big Florida freeze virtually all the orange trees were killed and Crosby returned north, not to return again for 27 years when he came on invitation of W. M. Reck, who had been his successor at Avon Park. He was welcomed home by the pioneers.
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 10 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder To Be Buried in Cemetery There
AVON PARK, March 9 (AP) ~ Here, in a cemetery he laid out nearly 50 years ago, the body of Oliver M. Crosby, founder of this city, will be laid to rest. He died in St. Petersburg yesterday at the age of 80.
Selecting the site of the present city from a vast wilderness in the early '80s', Crosby set out to make one of the most beautiful communities in the state.
His dream was blasted by the great freeze of 1895, however. He left the state for 27 years and upon his return found a modern city had arisen on the foundation he laid.
The body is to be sent here from St. Petersburg as soon as his daughter, Mrs. D. A. Findley, of Ben Avon, Pa., replies and agrees to funeral arrangements.
Tentative plans have been made for the services to be held Saturday when the entire community expects to attend.
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Saturday, 12 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder's Body Will Lie in State Today
AVON PARK, March 11 (Special) ~ Avon Park will pay its last tribute to its founder, Oliver M. Crosby, tomorrow. His body will lie in state at the Congregational church from noon until 2 o'clock, when funeral services will be held. Burial will be in Bougainvillea Cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago. Mr. Crosby died Wednesday in St. Petersburg.
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 13 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 24
AVON PARK FOUNDER BURIED
AVON PARK, March 12 (AP) ~ Funeral services for Oliver M. Crosby founder of this city, who died in St. Petersburg at the age of 80, were held here today. Burial was in Bougainvillea cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago.
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 11 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 47
OLIVER CROSBY RELATES STORY OF
RISE OF AVON PARK AND FIRST FALL
(Special to The Tribune)
AVON PARK, March 10. ~ While Henry B. Plant and Henry Flagler were dreaming of their tourist hotels along the east and west coasts, Oliver Marvin Crosby was already building a resort hotel in Avon Park and the story of the erection of this structure - a thirty-five room building - and the filling of it the first season although the new born community was thirty miles from a railroad, was interestingly told in audience of several hundred Avon Parkers Tuesday night by the founder of Avon Park - an intrepid Connecticut Yankee who came to Osceola's court back in 1883. Mr. Crosby told of the trials and tribulations of community building when sheer forest was converted into the beginnings of a prosperous little city that is now surrounded by more than 12,000 acres of groves. He told the story of the rise of Avon Park and the first fall, from which it recovered, though the misfortune sent him north broke. The story of the tangled land titles was explained - treacherous associates, and faint hearted ones, having complicated his affairs so that he was unable to unravel them following the misfortunes of 1895. Mr. Crosby, who is a resident of Pittsburgh, hasn't seen Avon Park since he left it under the depression of 1893-96 - twenty-eight years ago, and though he was shown pictures and slides before coming back he walks about the thriving little city and marvels at the wonders wrought in three scant decades.
Mr. Crosby told his story at a "home coming gathering" arranged for him by the woman's club and the board of trade when it was learned he was at the Hotel Avon - the Crosby's folly of 1889. Before introducing the speaker, W. M. Reck introduced Mrs. Bessie Mickler who sang two selections sweetly, being accompanied by Miss Myrtle Connoley.
Gets His Information
Getting back to the beginning - Mr. Crosby opened his reminiscences with his arrival in Florida in 1883. He called on Captain Admas, the Disston representative at Jacksonville and asked him, "Captain, what is the prettiest township you have in all Florida?"
"The captain shot back, 'thirty-three twenty-eight'," said Mr. Crosby, "and I found that this township, with its twenty-six lakes and scores of high hills was famous throughout Florida even in those days as 'thirty-three twenty-eight'."
He described his ride by boat to Sanford and over a narrow gauge railroad to Tampa, "which was then boasting - mind you, boasting - of a fifteen hundred population. My how it has changed."
He took another branch road to Bartow and secured a two-horse buggy, piled in two saddles and grub and hit it for 'Thirty-three twenty-eight' with a guide. At the end of the trail they saddled the horses and continued their trip by compass and horseback. He told of the magnificent view as he rode up the rise west of what is now Avon Park and from the summit looked across Lake Tulane which he named, and then across more woods and the vision that the larger Lake Lotela made on the landscape. The camp built on Tulane was headquarters for months.
To William King, whom he met on a trip from England, he gives the honor of being the first real settler here. Mr. King was accompanied by a Mr. Dewey but the latter left after a few months. Mr. King, now chairman of the county commissioners and member of the Avon Park band which played the welcoming ode to the guest of the evening.
Bought Township
He told of buying the township with a friend. Before the two year contract for purchase had expired he had endorsed his friend's notes so heavily that he considered continuance of the partnership hopeless. He went to Hamilton Disston to seek renewal of the contract and was refused renewal as a firm, but Mr. Disston gave a new contract to Mr. Crosby personally. This was about 1886.
For two years he worked. He told of being hunted through the woods by three dissatisfied young men, who later begged forgiveness and then burned down the schoolhouse. With things progressing better he opened an "immigration office" in New York and invested all he had, preparing for a big year just as the yellow fever broke out in its last gasp in the United States. The quarantine almost ruined his business and in this crisis he secured promise of financial assistance from Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay, a hat manufacturing firm at Danbury, Conn. They were to put in $15,000 each against his property, and he was to build the hotel and put the proposition through.
With the hotel half completed, his partners became caught in a financial tight and dropped out. The money stopped suddenly in August when they had put in only $17,000 of the promised $45,000. He forestalled labor trouble with the building of the hotel by borrowing $1,000 from George Frost, of garter fame, and by pushing sales managed to complete the hotel, known widely as "Crosby's folly" by winter.
He filled it up at once - the entire thirty-five rooms, and then was about to turn a party of fifteen back north at Fort Meade when his wife decided that the attic could be converted into rooms and with the help of the carpenters turned the trick. Rates at the hotel were $1 per day.
Interesting Facts
Turning aside to discuss ways and means - Mr. Crosby gave some very interesting facts regarding the early day development ideas and plans. "How did I do it?" he said. "I framed a little advertisement, or series of them, none over 25 lines, and none less. I told my advertising agent to put it in as many publications as he could buy for $100 per line. In four years I spent $25,000 in advertising and each time we ran an ad it cost $2,500.
"But it brought results. I kept the hotel filled continually and in one year we sold 843 contracts. Before the freeze, which has so widely advertised the recuperative power of Florida, there were 600 acres of young groves planted and more than 100 families living at Avon Park which was perhaps the biggest town in Florida thirty miles from a railroad.
His plan? One dollar down and one dollar per month. He sold one-acre lots close into town for $25 - one of the same acres that sold a few days ago for $3,000. They were paid for in two years under his contract.
When the Times-Union was boasting of 8,500 circulation, and Colonel W. F. Stovall was known in Florida journalistic circles as the "cub reporter", Mr. Crosby was editor of the Florida Homeseeker with a circulation of 10,000. And herein hangs another tale. The troubles of publishing a newspaper in those days when the jealousy of Fort Meade, where he had his printing plant, forced suspension and removal to Avon Park at an excessive cost. People at Fort Meade, he said, also cost him a sawmill, when they pictured Avon Park as "that swamp" to a gang of six lumbermen with a portable mill which he had bought in Connecticut and shipped down.
John Wanamaker, then postmaster-general, took away the second class postal privileges, but a written plea by Mr. Crosby brought restoration. Then when Admas came in with Cleveland's inauguration the low rate was withdrawn again, which led to the employment of a Dr. Blue who began editing the Avon Park Idea which was published until 1896.
His Undoing
Following the failure of the Beckerle, Schuldice and Fay assistance, Mr. Crosby said he enlisted the aid of a young man named Deerlove through H. P. Davidson, whose military academy Deerlove was attending. The man was supposed to have inherited a fortune, but claimed he couldn't realize on securities. To tide the development over he gave Mr. Crosby two notes for $5000 each for stock in the company, which he said he knew he could meet. But he never did. The discounting of those notes, confident of the associate's honesty, was "my undoing", said Mr. Crosby. The notes were not paid and "I had to mortgage the hotel to meet one and borrow from Mrs. Dodge to meet the other."
Then Deerlove tried to buy the Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay interests and failing, came to Fort Meade, according to Mr. Crosby, and camped along the trail to Avon Park where they intercepted prospective settlers "and poisoned their minds against the development."
Incorporation as the Florida Development Company followed the promise of $75,000 assistance from an English publisher who fell in love with the town after being brought here by Mr. Crosby. Bank failures in London spoiled those plans, leaving the young promoter high and dry again.
He had organized a bank and the town was booming in 1894. That year was the greatest in the history of the development. Then came the freeze which merely proved that Florida was here to stay. But it was a dark blue beginning for 1885. Panic stricken the people started a run on the bank. Throwing his private fortune into the breach Mr. Crosby saved the bank, but broke himself.
Taking over the bank's assets he had $96,000 in paper that had been good, and owed only $26,000. His holdings were sold under the hammer to pay those debts and he left here with a $10 bill and a promise to his family to send for them as soon as he could raise the funds.
Refused Big Job
Two years previously the East Coast officials had offered him the position as development agent. He had refused. He now applied to the late Mr. Parrott, who sent him to Flagler. He found the millionaire just opening the first of the Palm Beach hotels - eight years after the Avon.
Mr. Flagler told J. E. Ingraham to start him out and they went to what was to be a new community - "but I couldn't do it," Mr. Crosby said. "After seeing the real Florida. I couldn't bring myself to sell that scrub woods."
He went to New York on a pass - landing there with $2. He finally thought of his life insurance policy and managed to cash $710 on it. He sought a job with the company and worked it for several years, and writing in an insurance paper on various topics. His articles attracted attention of a Pittsburgh company which employed him to instruct their agents in his system.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months, straightening out title tangles as best she could. He has been teaching psychology in the Pittsburgh schools until he joined the sales force of the Scenic Highlands Development Company a few months ago.
His aim, he told the crowd in closing, "is a five acre grove on which I can spend my last days, and a grave in the little cemetery I donated to your town."
Three cheers for Crosby, proposed by Mr. Reck were heartily given.
Mr. Crosby will be here several days before going to Tampa and St. Petersburg, after which he will return north to resume his work for Avon Park, to the up-building of which, "I plan to devote the remaining days of my life."
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 15 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 15
Crosby's Return to Avon Park Inspires Laudatory Comments
Ernest B. Simmons, of Frostproof, in a letter to the editor of The Tribune, calls to mind some of the incidents of the time not recalled in the interview published with Oliver M. Crosby upon his return to Avon Park. Mr. Simmons takes occasion to praise both Mr. Crosby and his wife, both of whom worked so loyally and earnestly to make good situations growing out of the disastrous freezes of the nineties.
His letter follows:
"Editor Tribune: The account on page 47 of last Sunday's Tribune of Oliver M. Crosby's return to Avon Park, recalls to one, who lived in a neighboring community in those days, some things untold by Mr. Crosby in the interview as published in The Tribune."
"After the 'Big Freeze' of 1894 the hundreds of small investors were told that the like had never happened before and probably never would happen again. Then came the more disastrous freeze of 1895 which caught the trees in the midst of a tender growth. Hundreds of investors stopped paying on their contracts, a run was started on the bank as Mr. Crosby stated, and not only was his entire fortune swept away in his efforts to save the bank and make good on all his promises, but those who he had set up and put in positions to make good turned against their benefactor and united with his enemies in his undoing."
"The part not fully shown in Mr. Crosby's account of the disaster, was Mrs. Crosby's unselfish and heroic work in straightening out the tangle," he states briefly. "Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months straightening out little tangles as best she could." "That simple statement does not tell half of it. Deprived of her beloved husband's society, and in a critical and unfriendly neighborhood, this splendid woman spent nearly two years, writing letters to contract holders, dealing with the land company, and by tact, persuasion, persistence, and sustained by splendid will power and Christian purpose to see that the faith was kept with all the investors, managed to straighten out and give titles to all the contract holders who paid up."
"Meantime she kept to her own house, except when called out on business, worked all day and into the night, day after day. During this time Mrs. Crosby was seen very little in public for she felt deeply the unjust criticism of Mr. Crosby by the people of Avon Park. While she was working away to save the investments of hundreds of people of moderate means who had invested in Avon Park lands on the installment-payment plan, Mr. Crosby was selling life insurance in the north and out of this living was sending his wife money for her expenses in Avon Park."
"I happen to know of some of the discouragements Mrs. Crosby had to face, of the looks of scorn, to say nothing of the open criticism, she had to brave. Even her unselfish efforts to save investors were looked upon with suspicion and obstacles were thrown in her way which would have disheartened anyone less purposeful. I never knew another mortal to battle so courageously nor against such heavy odds as this noble woman. The town of Avon Park could do herself no higher honor than to erect a library, monument or some public structure in the name of this noble woman who has come back to live in peace on the scenes of her heroic struggles in 1897 and 1898. If honor is due - and it is due - to the broken hearted dreamer and builder of 1896, it is still more due to "The Woman Who Understands", who so nobly stood by his side, believed in him when all was lost and held up his hands. Avon Park is rich in having these splendid people once more their citizens."
ERNEST B. SIMMONS.
Frostproof, Fla., March, 11, 1923
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Wednesday, 9 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
O. M. Crosby, Founder Of Avon Park, Dies in St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, March 8 (AP) ~ Oliver M. Crosby 77, founder of Avon Park, died today at the Pinellas county home where he had been for several months. Crosby first came to Florida in 1889 and purchased an entire township where he later founded Avon Park named after his home town, Ben Avon, Pa. Ten years after he bought the townsite, the place was transformed into a wonderland of orange groves and homes.
In the first big Florida freeze virtually all the orange trees were killed and Crosby returned north, not to return again for 27 years when he came on invitation of W. M. Reck, who had been his successor at Avon Park. He was welcomed home by the pioneers.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 10 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder To Be Buried in Cemetery There
AVON PARK, March 9 (AP) ~ Here, in a cemetery he laid out nearly 50 years ago, the body of Oliver M. Crosby, founder of this city, will be laid to rest. He died in St. Petersburg yesterday at the age of 80.
Selecting the site of the present city from a vast wilderness in the early '80s', Crosby set out to make one of the most beautiful communities in the state.
His dream was blasted by the great freeze of 1895, however. He left the state for 27 years and upon his return found a modern city had arisen on the foundation he laid.
The body is to be sent here from St. Petersburg as soon as his daughter, Mrs. D. A. Findley, of Ben Avon, Pa., replies and agrees to funeral arrangements.
Tentative plans have been made for the services to be held Saturday when the entire community expects to attend.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Saturday, 12 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder's Body Will Lie in State Today
AVON PARK, March 11 (Special) ~ Avon Park will pay its last tribute to its founder, Oliver M. Crosby, tomorrow. His body will lie in state at the Congregational church from noon until 2 o'clock, when funeral services will be held. Burial will be in Bougainvillea Cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago. Mr. Crosby died Wednesday in St. Petersburg.
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Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 13 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 24
AVON PARK FOUNDER BURIED
AVON PARK, March 12 (AP) ~ Funeral services for Oliver M. Crosby founder of this city, who died in St. Petersburg at the age of 80, were held here today. Burial was in Bougainvillea cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago.
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Oliver Crosby was the founder of Avon Park, FL.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 11 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 47
OLIVER CROSBY RELATES STORY OF
RISE OF AVON PARK AND FIRST FALL
(Special to The Tribune)
AVON PARK, March 10. ~ While Henry B. Plant and Henry Flagler were dreaming of their tourist hotels along the east and west coasts, Oliver Marvin Crosby was already building a resort hotel in Avon Park and the story of the erection of this structure - a thirty-five room building - and the filling of it the first season although the new born community was thirty miles from a railroad, was interestingly told in audience of several hundred Avon Parkers Tuesday night by the founder of Avon Park - an intrepid Connecticut Yankee who came to Osceola's court back in 1883. Mr. Crosby told of the trials and tribulations of community building when sheer forest was converted into the beginnings of a prosperous little city that is now surrounded by more than 12,000 acres of groves. He told the story of the rise of Avon Park and the first fall, from which it recovered, though the misfortune sent him north broke. The story of the tangled land titles was explained - treacherous associates, and faint hearted ones, having complicated his affairs so that he was unable to unravel them following the misfortunes of 1895. Mr. Crosby, who is a resident of Pittsburgh, hasn't seen Avon Park since he left it under the depression of 1893-96 - twenty-eight years ago, and though he was shown pictures and slides before coming back he walks about the thriving little city and marvels at the wonders wrought in three scant decades.
Mr. Crosby told his story at a "home coming gathering" arranged for him by the woman's club and the board of trade when it was learned he was at the Hotel Avon - the Crosby's folly of 1889. Before introducing the speaker, W. M. Reck introduced Mrs. Bessie Mickler who sang two selections sweetly, being accompanied by Miss Myrtle Connoley.
Gets His Information
Getting back to the beginning - Mr. Crosby opened his reminiscences with his arrival in Florida in 1883. He called on Captain Admas, the Disston representative at Jacksonville and asked him, "Captain, what is the prettiest township you have in all Florida?"
"The captain shot back, 'thirty-three twenty-eight'," said Mr. Crosby, "and I found that this township, with its twenty-six lakes and scores of high hills was famous throughout Florida even in those days as 'thirty-three twenty-eight'."
He described his ride by boat to Sanford and over a narrow gauge railroad to Tampa, "which was then boasting - mind you, boasting - of a fifteen hundred population. My how it has changed."
He took another branch road to Bartow and secured a two-horse buggy, piled in two saddles and grub and hit it for 'Thirty-three twenty-eight' with a guide. At the end of the trail they saddled the horses and continued their trip by compass and horseback. He told of the magnificent view as he rode up the rise west of what is now Avon Park and from the summit looked across Lake Tulane which he named, and then across more woods and the vision that the larger Lake Lotela made on the landscape. The camp built on Tulane was headquarters for months.
To William King, whom he met on a trip from England, he gives the honor of being the first real settler here. Mr. King was accompanied by a Mr. Dewey but the latter left after a few months. Mr. King, now chairman of the county commissioners and member of the Avon Park band which played the welcoming ode to the guest of the evening.
Bought Township
He told of buying the township with a friend. Before the two year contract for purchase had expired he had endorsed his friend's notes so heavily that he considered continuance of the partnership hopeless. He went to Hamilton Disston to seek renewal of the contract and was refused renewal as a firm, but Mr. Disston gave a new contract to Mr. Crosby personally. This was about 1886.
For two years he worked. He told of being hunted through the woods by three dissatisfied young men, who later begged forgiveness and then burned down the schoolhouse. With things progressing better he opened an "immigration office" in New York and invested all he had, preparing for a big year just as the yellow fever broke out in its last gasp in the United States. The quarantine almost ruined his business and in this crisis he secured promise of financial assistance from Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay, a hat manufacturing firm at Danbury, Conn. They were to put in $15,000 each against his property, and he was to build the hotel and put the proposition through.
With the hotel half completed, his partners became caught in a financial tight and dropped out. The money stopped suddenly in August when they had put in only $17,000 of the promised $45,000. He forestalled labor trouble with the building of the hotel by borrowing $1,000 from George Frost, of garter fame, and by pushing sales managed to complete the hotel, known widely as "Crosby's folly" by winter.
He filled it up at once - the entire thirty-five rooms, and then was about to turn a party of fifteen back north at Fort Meade when his wife decided that the attic could be converted into rooms and with the help of the carpenters turned the trick. Rates at the hotel were $1 per day.
Interesting Facts
Turning aside to discuss ways and means - Mr. Crosby gave some very interesting facts regarding the early day development ideas and plans. "How did I do it?" he said. "I framed a little advertisement, or series of them, none over 25 lines, and none less. I told my advertising agent to put it in as many publications as he could buy for $100 per line. In four years I spent $25,000 in advertising and each time we ran an ad it cost $2,500.
"But it brought results. I kept the hotel filled continually and in one year we sold 843 contracts. Before the freeze, which has so widely advertised the recuperative power of Florida, there were 600 acres of young groves planted and more than 100 families living at Avon Park which was perhaps the biggest town in Florida thirty miles from a railroad.
His plan? One dollar down and one dollar per month. He sold one-acre lots close into town for $25 - one of the same acres that sold a few days ago for $3,000. They were paid for in two years under his contract.
When the Times-Union was boasting of 8,500 circulation, and Colonel W. F. Stovall was known in Florida journalistic circles as the "cub reporter", Mr. Crosby was editor of the Florida Homeseeker with a circulation of 10,000. And herein hangs another tale. The troubles of publishing a newspaper in those days when the jealousy of Fort Meade, where he had his printing plant, forced suspension and removal to Avon Park at an excessive cost. People at Fort Meade, he said, also cost him a sawmill, when they pictured Avon Park as "that swamp" to a gang of six lumbermen with a portable mill which he had bought in Connecticut and shipped down.
John Wanamaker, then postmaster-general, took away the second class postal privileges, but a written plea by Mr. Crosby brought restoration. Then when Admas came in with Cleveland's inauguration the low rate was withdrawn again, which led to the employment of a Dr. Blue who began editing the Avon Park Idea which was published until 1896.
His Undoing
Following the failure of the Beckerle, Schuldice and Fay assistance, Mr. Crosby said he enlisted the aid of a young man named Deerlove through H. P. Davidson, whose military academy Deerlove was attending. The man was supposed to have inherited a fortune, but claimed he couldn't realize on securities. To tide the development over he gave Mr. Crosby two notes for $5000 each for stock in the company, which he said he knew he could meet. But he never did. The discounting of those notes, confident of the associate's honesty, was "my undoing", said Mr. Crosby. The notes were not paid and "I had to mortgage the hotel to meet one and borrow from Mrs. Dodge to meet the other."
Then Deerlove tried to buy the Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay interests and failing, came to Fort Meade, according to Mr. Crosby, and camped along the trail to Avon Park where they intercepted prospective settlers "and poisoned their minds against the development."
Incorporation as the Florida Development Company followed the promise of $75,000 assistance from an English publisher who fell in love with the town after being brought here by Mr. Crosby. Bank failures in London spoiled those plans, leaving the young promoter high and dry again.
He had organized a bank and the town was booming in 1894. That year was the greatest in the history of the development. Then came the freeze which merely proved that Florida was here to stay. But it was a dark blue beginning for 1885. Panic stricken the people started a run on the bank. Throwing his private fortune into the breach Mr. Crosby saved the bank, but broke himself.
Taking over the bank's assets he had $96,000 in paper that had been good, and owed only $26,000. His holdings were sold under the hammer to pay those debts and he left here with a $10 bill and a promise to his family to send for them as soon as he could raise the funds.
Refused Big Job
Two years previously the East Coast officials had offered him the position as development agent. He had refused. He now applied to the late Mr. Parrott, who sent him to Flagler. He found the millionaire just opening the first of the Palm Beach hotels - eight years after the Avon.
Mr. Flagler told J. E. Ingraham to start him out and they went to what was to be a new community - "but I couldn't do it," Mr. Crosby said. "After seeing the real Florida. I couldn't bring myself to sell that scrub woods."
He went to New York on a pass - landing there with $2. He finally thought of his life insurance policy and managed to cash $710 on it. He sought a job with the company and worked it for several years, and writing in an insurance paper on various topics. His articles attracted attention of a Pittsburgh company which employed him to instruct their agents in his system.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months, straightening out title tangles as best she could. He has been teaching psychology in the Pittsburgh schools until he joined the sales force of the Scenic Highlands Development Company a few months ago.
His aim, he told the crowd in closing, "is a five acre grove on which I can spend my last days, and a grave in the little cemetery I donated to your town."
Three cheers for Crosby, proposed by Mr. Reck were heartily given.
Mr. Crosby will be here several days before going to Tampa and St. Petersburg, after which he will return north to resume his work for Avon Park, to the up-building of which, "I plan to devote the remaining days of my life."
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 15 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 15
Crosby's Return to Avon Park Inspires Laudatory Comments
Ernest B. Simmons, of Frostproof, in a letter to the editor of The Tribune, calls to mind some of the incidents of the time not recalled in the interview published with Oliver M. Crosby upon his return to Avon Park. Mr. Simmons takes occasion to praise both Mr. Crosby and his wife, both of whom worked so loyally and earnestly to make good situations growing out of the disastrous freezes of the nineties.
His letter follows:
"Editor Tribune: The account on page 47 of last Sunday's Tribune of Oliver M. Crosby's return to Avon Park, recalls to one, who lived in a neighboring community in those days, some things untold by Mr. Crosby in the interview as published in The Tribune."
"After the 'Big Freeze' of 1894 the hundreds of small investors were told that the like had never happened before and probably never would happen again. Then came the more disastrous freeze of 1895 which caught the trees in the midst of a tender growth. Hundreds of investors stopped paying on their contracts, a run was started on the bank as Mr. Crosby stated, and not only was his entire fortune swept away in his efforts to save the bank and make good on all his promises, but those who he had set up and put in positions to make good turned against their benefactor and united with his enemies in his undoing."
"The part not fully shown in Mr. Crosby's account of the disaster, was Mrs. Crosby's unselfish and heroic work in straightening out the tangle," he states briefly. "Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months straightening out little tangles as best she could." "That simple statement does not tell half of it. Deprived of her beloved husband's society, and in a critical and unfriendly neighborhood, this splendid woman spent nearly two years, writing letters to contract holders, dealing with the land company, and by tact, persuasion, persistence, and sustained by splendid will power and Christian purpose to see that the faith was kept with all the investors, managed to straighten out and give titles to all the contract holders who paid up."
"Meantime she kept to her own house, except when called out on business, worked all day and into the night, day after day. During this time Mrs. Crosby was seen very little in public for she felt deeply the unjust criticism of Mr. Crosby by the people of Avon Park. While she was working away to save the investments of hundreds of people of moderate means who had invested in Avon Park lands on the installment-payment plan, Mr. Crosby was selling life insurance in the north and out of this living was sending his wife money for her expenses in Avon Park."
"I happen to know of some of the discouragements Mrs. Crosby had to face, of the looks of scorn, to say nothing of the open criticism, she had to brave. Even her unselfish efforts to save investors were looked upon with suspicion and obstacles were thrown in her way which would have disheartened anyone less purposeful. I never knew another mortal to battle so courageously nor against such heavy odds as this noble woman. The town of Avon Park could do herself no higher honor than to erect a library, monument or some public structure in the name of this noble woman who has come back to live in peace on the scenes of her heroic struggles in 1897 and 1898. If honor is due - and it is due - to the broken hearted dreamer and builder of 1896, it is still more due to "The Woman Who Understands", who so nobly stood by his side, believed in him when all was lost and held up his hands. Avon Park is rich in having these splendid people once more their citizens."
ERNEST B. SIMMONS.
Frostproof, Fla., March, 11, 1923
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Wednesday, 9 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
O. M. Crosby, Founder Of Avon Park, Dies in St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, March 8 (AP) ~ Oliver M. Crosby 77, founder of Avon Park, died today at the Pinellas county home where he had been for several months. Crosby first came to Florida in 1889 and purchased an entire township where he later founded Avon Park named after his home town, Ben Avon, Pa. Ten years after he bought the townsite, the place was transformed into a wonderland of orange groves and homes.
In the first big Florida freeze virtually all the orange trees were killed and Crosby returned north, not to return again for 27 years when he came on invitation of W. M. Reck, who had been his successor at Avon Park. He was welcomed home by the pioneers.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 10 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder To Be Buried in Cemetery There
AVON PARK, March 9 (AP) ~ Here, in a cemetery he laid out nearly 50 years ago, the body of Oliver M. Crosby, founder of this city, will be laid to rest. He died in St. Petersburg yesterday at the age of 80.
Selecting the site of the present city from a vast wilderness in the early '80s', Crosby set out to make one of the most beautiful communities in the state.
His dream was blasted by the great freeze of 1895, however. He left the state for 27 years and upon his return found a modern city had arisen on the foundation he laid.
The body is to be sent here from St. Petersburg as soon as his daughter, Mrs. D. A. Findley, of Ben Avon, Pa., replies and agrees to funeral arrangements.
Tentative plans have been made for the services to be held Saturday when the entire community expects to attend.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Saturday, 12 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder's Body Will Lie in State Today
AVON PARK, March 11 (Special) ~ Avon Park will pay its last tribute to its founder, Oliver M. Crosby, tomorrow. His body will lie in state at the Congregational church from noon until 2 o'clock, when funeral services will be held. Burial will be in Bougainvillea Cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago. Mr. Crosby died Wednesday in St. Petersburg.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 13 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 24
AVON PARK FOUNDER BURIED
AVON PARK, March 12 (AP) ~ Funeral services for Oliver M. Crosby founder of this city, who died in St. Petersburg at the age of 80, were held here today. Burial was in Bougainvillea cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 11 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 47
OLIVER CROSBY RELATES STORY OF
RISE OF AVON PARK AND FIRST FALL
(Special to The Tribune)
AVON PARK, March 10. ~ While Henry B. Plant and Henry Flagler were dreaming of their tourist hotels along the east and west coasts, Oliver Marvin Crosby was already building a resort hotel in Avon Park and the story of the erection of this structure - a thirty-five room building - and the filling of it the first season although the new born community was thirty miles from a railroad, was interestingly told in audience of several hundred Avon Parkers Tuesday night by the founder of Avon Park - an intrepid Connecticut Yankee who came to Osceola's court back in 1883. Mr. Crosby told of the trials and tribulations of community building when sheer forest was converted into the beginnings of a prosperous little city that is now surrounded by more than 12,000 acres of groves. He told the story of the rise of Avon Park and the first fall, from which it recovered, though the misfortune sent him north broke. The story of the tangled land titles was explained - treacherous associates, and faint hearted ones, having complicated his affairs so that he was unable to unravel them following the misfortunes of 1895. Mr. Crosby, who is a resident of Pittsburgh, hasn't seen Avon Park since he left it under the depression of 1893-96 - twenty-eight years ago, and though he was shown pictures and slides before coming back he walks about the thriving little city and marvels at the wonders wrought in three scant decades.
Mr. Crosby told his story at a "home coming gathering" arranged for him by the woman's club and the board of trade when it was learned he was at the Hotel Avon - the Crosby's folly of 1889. Before introducing the speaker, W. M. Reck introduced Mrs. Bessie Mickler who sang two selections sweetly, being accompanied by Miss Myrtle Connoley.
Gets His Information
Getting back to the beginning - Mr. Crosby opened his reminiscences with his arrival in Florida in 1883. He called on Captain Admas, the Disston representative at Jacksonville and asked him, "Captain, what is the prettiest township you have in all Florida?"
"The captain shot back, 'thirty-three twenty-eight'," said Mr. Crosby, "and I found that this township, with its twenty-six lakes and scores of high hills was famous throughout Florida even in those days as 'thirty-three twenty-eight'."
He described his ride by boat to Sanford and over a narrow gauge railroad to Tampa, "which was then boasting - mind you, boasting - of a fifteen hundred population. My how it has changed."
He took another branch road to Bartow and secured a two-horse buggy, piled in two saddles and grub and hit it for 'Thirty-three twenty-eight' with a guide. At the end of the trail they saddled the horses and continued their trip by compass and horseback. He told of the magnificent view as he rode up the rise west of what is now Avon Park and from the summit looked across Lake Tulane which he named, and then across more woods and the vision that the larger Lake Lotela made on the landscape. The camp built on Tulane was headquarters for months.
To William King, whom he met on a trip from England, he gives the honor of being the first real settler here. Mr. King was accompanied by a Mr. Dewey but the latter left after a few months. Mr. King, now chairman of the county commissioners and member of the Avon Park band which played the welcoming ode to the guest of the evening.
Bought Township
He told of buying the township with a friend. Before the two year contract for purchase had expired he had endorsed his friend's notes so heavily that he considered continuance of the partnership hopeless. He went to Hamilton Disston to seek renewal of the contract and was refused renewal as a firm, but Mr. Disston gave a new contract to Mr. Crosby personally. This was about 1886.
For two years he worked. He told of being hunted through the woods by three dissatisfied young men, who later begged forgiveness and then burned down the schoolhouse. With things progressing better he opened an "immigration office" in New York and invested all he had, preparing for a big year just as the yellow fever broke out in its last gasp in the United States. The quarantine almost ruined his business and in this crisis he secured promise of financial assistance from Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay, a hat manufacturing firm at Danbury, Conn. They were to put in $15,000 each against his property, and he was to build the hotel and put the proposition through.
With the hotel half completed, his partners became caught in a financial tight and dropped out. The money stopped suddenly in August when they had put in only $17,000 of the promised $45,000. He forestalled labor trouble with the building of the hotel by borrowing $1,000 from George Frost, of garter fame, and by pushing sales managed to complete the hotel, known widely as "Crosby's folly" by winter.
He filled it up at once - the entire thirty-five rooms, and then was about to turn a party of fifteen back north at Fort Meade when his wife decided that the attic could be converted into rooms and with the help of the carpenters turned the trick. Rates at the hotel were $1 per day.
Interesting Facts
Turning aside to discuss ways and means - Mr. Crosby gave some very interesting facts regarding the early day development ideas and plans. "How did I do it?" he said. "I framed a little advertisement, or series of them, none over 25 lines, and none less. I told my advertising agent to put it in as many publications as he could buy for $100 per line. In four years I spent $25,000 in advertising and each time we ran an ad it cost $2,500.
"But it brought results. I kept the hotel filled continually and in one year we sold 843 contracts. Before the freeze, which has so widely advertised the recuperative power of Florida, there were 600 acres of young groves planted and more than 100 families living at Avon Park which was perhaps the biggest town in Florida thirty miles from a railroad.
His plan? One dollar down and one dollar per month. He sold one-acre lots close into town for $25 - one of the same acres that sold a few days ago for $3,000. They were paid for in two years under his contract.
When the Times-Union was boasting of 8,500 circulation, and Colonel W. F. Stovall was known in Florida journalistic circles as the "cub reporter", Mr. Crosby was editor of the Florida Homeseeker with a circulation of 10,000. And herein hangs another tale. The troubles of publishing a newspaper in those days when the jealousy of Fort Meade, where he had his printing plant, forced suspension and removal to Avon Park at an excessive cost. People at Fort Meade, he said, also cost him a sawmill, when they pictured Avon Park as "that swamp" to a gang of six lumbermen with a portable mill which he had bought in Connecticut and shipped down.
John Wanamaker, then postmaster-general, took away the second class postal privileges, but a written plea by Mr. Crosby brought restoration. Then when Admas came in with Cleveland's inauguration the low rate was withdrawn again, which led to the employment of a Dr. Blue who began editing the Avon Park Idea which was published until 1896.
His Undoing
Following the failure of the Beckerle, Schuldice and Fay assistance, Mr. Crosby said he enlisted the aid of a young man named Deerlove through H. P. Davidson, whose military academy Deerlove was attending. The man was supposed to have inherited a fortune, but claimed he couldn't realize on securities. To tide the development over he gave Mr. Crosby two notes for $5000 each for stock in the company, which he said he knew he could meet. But he never did. The discounting of those notes, confident of the associate's honesty, was "my undoing", said Mr. Crosby. The notes were not paid and "I had to mortgage the hotel to meet one and borrow from Mrs. Dodge to meet the other."
Then Deerlove tried to buy the Beckerle, Schuldice & Fay interests and failing, came to Fort Meade, according to Mr. Crosby, and camped along the trail to Avon Park where they intercepted prospective settlers "and poisoned their minds against the development."
Incorporation as the Florida Development Company followed the promise of $75,000 assistance from an English publisher who fell in love with the town after being brought here by Mr. Crosby. Bank failures in London spoiled those plans, leaving the young promoter high and dry again.
He had organized a bank and the town was booming in 1894. That year was the greatest in the history of the development. Then came the freeze which merely proved that Florida was here to stay. But it was a dark blue beginning for 1885. Panic stricken the people started a run on the bank. Throwing his private fortune into the breach Mr. Crosby saved the bank, but broke himself.
Taking over the bank's assets he had $96,000 in paper that had been good, and owed only $26,000. His holdings were sold under the hammer to pay those debts and he left here with a $10 bill and a promise to his family to send for them as soon as he could raise the funds.
Refused Big Job
Two years previously the East Coast officials had offered him the position as development agent. He had refused. He now applied to the late Mr. Parrott, who sent him to Flagler. He found the millionaire just opening the first of the Palm Beach hotels - eight years after the Avon.
Mr. Flagler told J. E. Ingraham to start him out and they went to what was to be a new community - "but I couldn't do it," Mr. Crosby said. "After seeing the real Florida. I couldn't bring myself to sell that scrub woods."
He went to New York on a pass - landing there with $2. He finally thought of his life insurance policy and managed to cash $710 on it. He sought a job with the company and worked it for several years, and writing in an insurance paper on various topics. His articles attracted attention of a Pittsburgh company which employed him to instruct their agents in his system.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months, straightening out title tangles as best she could. He has been teaching psychology in the Pittsburgh schools until he joined the sales force of the Scenic Highlands Development Company a few months ago.
His aim, he told the crowd in closing, "is a five acre grove on which I can spend my last days, and a grave in the little cemetery I donated to your town."
Three cheers for Crosby, proposed by Mr. Reck were heartily given.
Mr. Crosby will be here several days before going to Tampa and St. Petersburg, after which he will return north to resume his work for Avon Park, to the up-building of which, "I plan to devote the remaining days of my life."
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 15 Mar 1923 ~ Pg. 15
Crosby's Return to Avon Park Inspires Laudatory Comments
Ernest B. Simmons, of Frostproof, in a letter to the editor of The Tribune, calls to mind some of the incidents of the time not recalled in the interview published with Oliver M. Crosby upon his return to Avon Park. Mr. Simmons takes occasion to praise both Mr. Crosby and his wife, both of whom worked so loyally and earnestly to make good situations growing out of the disastrous freezes of the nineties.
His letter follows:
"Editor Tribune: The account on page 47 of last Sunday's Tribune of Oliver M. Crosby's return to Avon Park, recalls to one, who lived in a neighboring community in those days, some things untold by Mr. Crosby in the interview as published in The Tribune."
"After the 'Big Freeze' of 1894 the hundreds of small investors were told that the like had never happened before and probably never would happen again. Then came the more disastrous freeze of 1895 which caught the trees in the midst of a tender growth. Hundreds of investors stopped paying on their contracts, a run was started on the bank as Mr. Crosby stated, and not only was his entire fortune swept away in his efforts to save the bank and make good on all his promises, but those who he had set up and put in positions to make good turned against their benefactor and united with his enemies in his undoing."
"The part not fully shown in Mr. Crosby's account of the disaster, was Mrs. Crosby's unselfish and heroic work in straightening out the tangle," he states briefly. "Meanwhile, Mrs. Crosby returned to Avon Park and spent 20 months straightening out little tangles as best she could." "That simple statement does not tell half of it. Deprived of her beloved husband's society, and in a critical and unfriendly neighborhood, this splendid woman spent nearly two years, writing letters to contract holders, dealing with the land company, and by tact, persuasion, persistence, and sustained by splendid will power and Christian purpose to see that the faith was kept with all the investors, managed to straighten out and give titles to all the contract holders who paid up."
"Meantime she kept to her own house, except when called out on business, worked all day and into the night, day after day. During this time Mrs. Crosby was seen very little in public for she felt deeply the unjust criticism of Mr. Crosby by the people of Avon Park. While she was working away to save the investments of hundreds of people of moderate means who had invested in Avon Park lands on the installment-payment plan, Mr. Crosby was selling life insurance in the north and out of this living was sending his wife money for her expenses in Avon Park."
"I happen to know of some of the discouragements Mrs. Crosby had to face, of the looks of scorn, to say nothing of the open criticism, she had to brave. Even her unselfish efforts to save investors were looked upon with suspicion and obstacles were thrown in her way which would have disheartened anyone less purposeful. I never knew another mortal to battle so courageously nor against such heavy odds as this noble woman. The town of Avon Park could do herself no higher honor than to erect a library, monument or some public structure in the name of this noble woman who has come back to live in peace on the scenes of her heroic struggles in 1897 and 1898. If honor is due - and it is due - to the broken hearted dreamer and builder of 1896, it is still more due to "The Woman Who Understands", who so nobly stood by his side, believed in him when all was lost and held up his hands. Avon Park is rich in having these splendid people once more their citizens."
ERNEST B. SIMMONS.
Frostproof, Fla., March, 11, 1923
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Wednesday, 9 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
O. M. Crosby, Founder Of Avon Park, Dies in St. Petersburg
ST. PETERSBURG, March 8 (AP) ~ Oliver M. Crosby 77, founder of Avon Park, died today at the Pinellas county home where he had been for several months. Crosby first came to Florida in 1889 and purchased an entire township where he later founded Avon Park named after his home town, Ben Avon, Pa. Ten years after he bought the townsite, the place was transformed into a wonderland of orange groves and homes.
In the first big Florida freeze virtually all the orange trees were killed and Crosby returned north, not to return again for 27 years when he came on invitation of W. M. Reck, who had been his successor at Avon Park. He was welcomed home by the pioneers.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Thursday, 10 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder To Be Buried in Cemetery There
AVON PARK, March 9 (AP) ~ Here, in a cemetery he laid out nearly 50 years ago, the body of Oliver M. Crosby, founder of this city, will be laid to rest. He died in St. Petersburg yesterday at the age of 80.
Selecting the site of the present city from a vast wilderness in the early '80s', Crosby set out to make one of the most beautiful communities in the state.
His dream was blasted by the great freeze of 1895, however. He left the state for 27 years and upon his return found a modern city had arisen on the foundation he laid.
The body is to be sent here from St. Petersburg as soon as his daughter, Mrs. D. A. Findley, of Ben Avon, Pa., replies and agrees to funeral arrangements.
Tentative plans have been made for the services to be held Saturday when the entire community expects to attend.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Saturday, 12 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 2
Avon Park Founder's Body Will Lie in State Today
AVON PARK, March 11 (Special) ~ Avon Park will pay its last tribute to its founder, Oliver M. Crosby, tomorrow. His body will lie in state at the Congregational church from noon until 2 o'clock, when funeral services will be held. Burial will be in Bougainvillea Cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago. Mr. Crosby died Wednesday in St. Petersburg.
~~~~~~~~~~
Tampa Tribune
Tampa, FL
Sunday, 13 Mar 1932 ~ Pg. 24
AVON PARK FOUNDER BURIED
AVON PARK, March 12 (AP) ~ Funeral services for Oliver M. Crosby founder of this city, who died in St. Petersburg at the age of 80, were held here today. Burial was in Bougainvillea cemetery, which he laid out 50 years ago.
~~~~~~~~~~
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