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Lake County’s 120th birthday has come and gone without much fanfare. The county was formed from portions of Orange and Sumter counties under an act of the State Legislature on May 27, 1887.
For all
practical application, things became official when the first Lake County Commission
meeting, a two-day affair, ended Aug. 3, 1887.
When it was finished, the five men appointed commissioners by Gov. Edward A. Perry – pending an election, had created Lake County’s government. The board met in June and established Bloomfield as the temporary county seat. Bloomfield was located a little west of Yalaha. In other action that day, a two-story home owned by Rev. J.W. Hanner was leased as the courthouse.
If you went
looking for information about Bloomfield in The South Publishing Company’s most
recent Florida State Gazetteer and Business Directory of the day, you quickly
noticed that Bloomfield was listed as being in Sumter
County. And if you glance
at the date, you’ll understand why. It was Vol. 1 and good for 1886-87 – before
Lake County was formed. At the time, the
booming community had a population of 250. It had a school, a
Baptist church, four stores and a saw and planing
mill.
When Lake County’s 23 election districts were selected and numbered, Acron was number 3, according to Kennedy’s history. The rest listed are as follows: Astor was No. 1, Altoona – No. 2 Crow’s Bluff – No. 4, Cassia – No. 5, Seneca – No. 6, Umatilla – No. 7, Higley – No. 8, Fort Mason – No. 9, Leesburg – No. 10, Lady Lake – No. 11, Okahumpka – No. 12, Eustis – No. 13, Sorrento No. 14, Tavares – No. 15, Lane Park – No. 16, Yalaha – No. 17, Mascotte – No. 18, Astatula – No. 19, Victoria – No. 20, Mascotte No. 21, Minneola and Clermont – No. 22 and Mount Dora – No. 23.
It’s very likely that one of the two Mascotte districts, 18 and 21, most likely 21, should have been Groveland because when Kennedy’s book was published there were 25 districts with Groveland as 23 and Mascotte as 14.
By the way, in 1929 District 3 was Paisley and not Acron.
Let’s get back to
what the Florida State Gazetteer said about Acron, which was the second
community listed in the more than 400 pages of counties, cities, towns and
villages alphabetically listed.
The Gazetteer gave
“a brief descriptive sketch of each, with an alphabetical and classified
directory of the business and professional citizens; together with separate
lists of the orange growers, vegetable raisers, farmers and cotton planters and
banana and coconut growers throughout the entire State of
Florida.”
Just in case
you’re wondering, Abe’s Spring in Calhoun County was the first community listed.
Calhoun County was established in the Florida Panhandle in 1838. And in 1886-87,
it was primarily cotton country.
Rick Reed
© 2009-2012 by Fran Smith