Editing Avon Park, Florida (section)

==History==
The first permanent white settler in Avon Park was Oliver Martin Crosby, a [[Connecticut]] native who moved to the area in 1884 to study the wildlife of the [[Everglades]]. By 1886, enough people had followed that the "Town of Lake Forest" was founded. As president of the Florida Development Company, he recruited settlers to the area, many of whom were from [[England]], including many from the town of [[Stratford-upon-Avon]], who gave the town its name.<ref>Kevin M. McCarthy, ''African American Sites in Florida'', p. 95</ref>

=== 1927–29 spring training ground of the St. Louis Cardinals ===
From 1927 to 1929, Avon Park's newly constructed Cardinal Field (now Head Field) was the spring training ground of the [[St. Louis Cardinals]], a [[Major League Baseball]] team. Avon Park resident Charles R. Head convinced his friend [[Sam Breadon]], the owner of the Cardinals, to move the baseball team's spring training ground to the city.

The spring training matches were very popular affairs and many matches saw attendances above the entire population of the city. On March 16, 1928, before a spring training match between the [[New York Yankees]] and St. Louis Cardinals, residents presented Yankees player [[Babe Ruth]] with a {{Convert|52|in|cm|abbr=on}}, {{Convert|14|lb|kg|abbr=on}} commemorative baseball bat in a pre-game ceremony. Ruth also struck a home run which landed on a nearby street and the city had the street renamed "Ruth Street" in his honor.

At the end of the agreement in 1929, Breadon moved the Cardinals' spring training ground to [[Bradenton, Florida|Bradenton]], citing inadequate hotel facilities and poor field conditions. Avon Park mayor C. S. Donaldson disputed Breadon's accusations and claimed that the city had five excellent hotels and that the field was well maintained, had a modern clubhouse to accommodate players, and was even built to the specifications of the team, under the supervision of a Cardinals groundskeeper.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Byrne |first=Jason |date=April 27, 2023 |title=Cardinals Played in Avon Park from 1927-1929 |url=https://floridahistoryblog.com/cardinals-played-in-avon-park-from-1927-1929/ |access-date=November 8, 2024 |website=Florida History Blog}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Roar of the 20s in Two Centuries |url=https://floridagrapefruitleague.com/the-roar-of-the-20s-in-two-centuries/ |access-date=November 8, 2024 |website=Florida Grapefruit League}}</ref>

=== ''Gough v. State'' ===
In September 1949, the city elected the youngest mayor in United States history at the time, 21-year-old Wiley Sauls Jr., largely due to the votes of the second precinct, which was populated mostly by black residents. Sauls Jr. received 76% of the precinct's votes, and he went from third out of five candidates to first and usurped incumbent mayor O. C. Wilkes, who only received 20 votes from the second precinct.

In the following city-wide election on September 11, 1951, the second precinct was allowed for the first time to be staffed and managed by its majority black populace. The overseeing inspector of the second precinct and the second precinct's clerks were all black. Wilkes challenged Sauls Jr. for the mayorship, and he received a slim eight vote majority in the first precinct, but Sauls Jr. received 92.5% of the votes in the second precinct and comfortably defeated Wilkes. Two new city councilmen, Mannin Kirkland and J. B. Sparks, were also elected to the city council largely due to the votes of the second precinct.

The incumbent city council met four days after the election and heard Wilkes' protest, who claimed that there were voter irregularities in the second precinct and that they should install him as mayor. The city council refused Wilkes' demands, but he began lobbying local influencers and convinced the council to convene a special session on September 25. Wilkes alleged in this second meeting that the second precinct had not returned all of its blank ballots after the election and that this called into question the validity of the results. The council voted 3–1, with one abstention, to throw out the votes of the second precinct, which prompted Wilkes to immediately begin acting as mayor, while Kirkland and Sparks were to be replaced by E. W. Gough and Oscar Wolff.

Sauls Jr., Kirkland, and Sparks hired attorney Keith Collyer, who argued that it was unlawful that a mere claim of irregularities would give the council the authority to install themselves into office in the face of a challenge to their power. While the circuit court sided with Sauls Jr., Kirkland, and Sparks, and demanded that the three be put into power, Wilkes and the council through attorney S. C. Pardee Sr. pushed the case upwards through the judicial system and also began to argue that the second precinct's inspector, W. J. Robinson, had helped people to cast their ballots. The [[Supreme Court of Florida]] also voted in favor of Sauls Jr., Kirkland, and Sparks, and the three were then installed as mayor and councilmen respectively and put municipal governments on notice that they did not have the authority to invalidate an election in order to remain in power.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Byrne |first=Jason |date=August 28, 2022 |title=Avon Park City Council Throws Out All Black Votes in 1951 Election |url=https://floridahistoryblog.com/avon-park-city-council-throws-out-all-black-votes-in-1951-election/ |access-date=July 29, 2024 |website=Florida History Blog}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=November 20, 1951 |title=Gough v. State |url=https://casetext.com/case/gough-v-state-1/ |access-date=July 29, 2024 |website=Casetext}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=October 10, 1951 |title=Supreme Court Halts Action In Contested Avon Park Vote |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tampa-tribune-1951-disputed-mayors/126001630/ |access-date=July 29, 2024 |work=[[The Tampa Tribune]]}}</ref>

=== 1950s military plane crashes ===
On November 4, 1950, a [[Republic F-84 Thunderjet]] being flown by 22-year-old Donald Floyd Whiston of the [[United States Air Force]] from [[Naval Air Station Albany]] (formerly Turner Air Force Base) during training for the [[Korean War]], crashed into the ground, killing Whiston, at the Avon Park Air Force Range, just northeast of the city, after apparently stalling in the sky.<ref>{{Cite web |title=USAF ACCIDENT REPORT SUMMARY SHEET |url=https://www.aviationarchaeology.com/rptAF55.asp?RecID=7370 |website=Aviation Archaeology}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Accident Republic F-84E Thunderjet 49-2070, Saturday 4 November 1950 |url=https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/115378}}</ref>

Less than eight years later, on March 21, 1958, a [[Boeing B-47 Stratojet]] being flown from [[MacDill Air Force Base]] crashed into the ground at Avon Park Air Force Range. All four occupants were killed in the resulting explosion.<ref>{{Cite news |date=March 22, 1958 |title=MacDill Crash All Victims Here |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tampa-times-03221958-macdill-crash/19933783/ |access-date=July 29, 2024 |work=[[Tampa Times]]}}</ref>

=== Operation Drop Kick ===
{{main|Operation Drop Kick}}

In 1956, the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] [[Chemical Corps]] released 600,000 uninfected [[Aedes aegypti|yellow fever mosquitoes]] from a plane from Avon Park Air Force Range over the city in order to test how efficiently the mosquitoes spread after conducting a similar experiment in [[Savannah, Georgia]] earlier in the year. The experiment was part of Operation Drop Kick, a series of military experiments to determine the practicality of employing mosquitoes to carry an [[entomological warfare]] agent in different ways. A day after the release the mosquitoes had spread between {{Convert|1|mi|km|abbr=on}} to {{Convert|2|mi|km|abbr=on}} in each direction and bitten many residents.

In 1958, the Chemical Corps conducted further tests from Avon Park Air Force Range and determined that mosquitoes could be easily disseminated from helicopters, devices dropped from planes, or by being deployed from the ground. Chemical Corps researchers found that the mosquitoes would spread more than a mile in each direction from where they were deployed and that they would quickly enter all types of buildings.<ref name="Osti">{{cite web |title=Summary of Major Events and Problems: (Reports Control Syrnbol CSHIS-6) United States Army Chemical Corps, Fiscal Year 1959 |url=https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/16006843-5BAfk6/16006843.pdf=PA103 |access-date=November 14, 2024 |work=[[Chemical Corps|United States Army Chemical Corps]] |pages=101–104}}</ref>

On October 28, 1980, the documents detailing the experiments were declassified as part of the [[Church of Scientology]]'s legal battles with the federal government under the [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|Freedom of Information Act]]. After the Church of Scientology obtained the documents, the group made them available to journalists.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gilmore |first=Daniel F. |date=October 29, 1980 |title=Swarms of mosquitoes, the type notorious for transmitting yellow fever, were released in Georgia and Florida in the 1950s by the Army to see if the insects could be used as biological warfare weapons, documents show |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1980/10/29/Swarms-of-mosquitoes-the-type-notorious-for-transmitting-yellow/5266341643600/ |access-date=November 14, 2024 |work=[[United Press International]]}}</ref>

=== 2006 Illegal Immigrant Relief Act ===
In 2006, then mayor Thomas Macklin proposed City Ordinance 08-06, or the Illegal Immigrant Relief Act, which would have blocked the issuance or renewal of city licenses to businesses that hired [[alien (law)|undocumented aliens]], fined any property owner who rented and leased property to undocumented aliens, and established English as the city's official language, banning the use of other languages during the conduct of official business except where specified under state or federal law.<ref name="ordinance">{{cite web |url=http://www.heraldtribune.com/assets/pdf/SH6957724.PDF |title=Avon Park Ordinance 08-06 |publisher=City of Avon Park |access-date=2007-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929123151/http://www.heraldtribune.com/assets/pdf/SH6957724.PDF |archive-date=29 September 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In the weeks before the vote, local businesses saw a drop in sales as immigrants became wary of coming into shop and droves of workers stopped showing up to local farms out of fear of being arrested.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sanchez |first=Christina E. |date=July 26, 2006 |title=Avon Park mayor isn't giving up |url=https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2006/07/26/avon-park-mayor-isnt-giving-up/28489715007/ |access-date=July 29, 2024 |work=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]]}}</ref> The ordinance was defeated by the city council, on a 3–2 vote.<ref name="SHT">{{cite news|url=http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060805/NEWS/608050372 |title=Avon Park's debate far from finished |author=Hutchinson, Bill |date=5 August 2006 |newspaper=[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]] |access-date=2007-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929142220/http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20060805%2FNEWS%2F608050372 |archive-date=29 September 2007 |url-status=live }}</ref>