Editing Lake Alfred, Florida (section)

==History==

The city was established soon after the [[South Florida Railroad]] reached the area in 1883.<ref>Frisbie, L.K. (1976) ''Yesterday's Polk County'' Imperial Publishing Company, Bartow, FL</ref> It had a number of early names, including Fargo, Chubb and Bartow Junction.

The settlement was named '''Fargo''' by [[snowbird (person)|snowbirds]] escaping the cold of [[Fargo, North Dakota|Fargo]], [[North Dakota]]. They at first named the settlement after their hometown, but the [[United States Postal Service]] protested after a series of mix-ups with the town of [[Largo, Florida|Largo]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1346&dat=19600814&id=W38wAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PPoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6912,1492998&hl=en | title=First Polk Settlers Had to Build Towns, Then Name Them | work=[[Lakeland Ledger]] | date=14 August 1960 | access-date=22 April 2015 | author=Whitehead, Bill | pages=7–A}}</ref> The town then became '''Chubb''' and later '''Bartow Junction''' because it lay at the junction of a railroad leading south into the county seat [[Bartow, Florida|Bartow]].

The name Lake Alfred was adopted in 1913 and was taken from the nearest large lake, named after Alfred Parslow, who came to Florida in 1877 and obtained a charter to build the [[Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad]].<ref>Morris, A.(1995) Florida Place Names Pineapple Press</ref><ref name="Names of Polk Cities">{{cite web
 |url=http://www.polkcountyhistory.org/pdf/mar78.pdf 
 |title=Names of Polk Cities 
 |date=March 1978 
 |access-date=2010-09-25 
 |publisher=Polk County Historical Association 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727182252/http://www.polkcountyhistory.org/pdf/mar78.pdf 
 |archive-date=2011-07-27 
}}</ref>

In 1917, the State of Florida established the first off-campus center for the [[University of Florida]] in Lake Alfred, the Citrus Experiment Station to study ways of improving citrus growing.<ref name="CES">{{cite web
 |url=http://www.polkcountyhistory.org/pdf/dec03.pdf 
 |page=1 
 |title=CES 
 |date=December 2003 
 |access-date=2010-09-25 
 |publisher=Polk County Historical Association 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727182445/http://www.polkcountyhistory.org/pdf/dec03.pdf 
 |archive-date=2011-07-27 
}}</ref> Today this location is known as the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center.