As 1936 began, Dick and Julie Pope would host the grand opening of their park on January 2. Many local leaders had serious doubts about...

Dick and Julie Pope are remembered (respectively) by many Havenites as the flamboyant and gracious founders of Cypress Gardens. Their...

Having survived the implosion of the Florida Boom in 1926, Florida was well on its way to recovery when the factors of the Great...

As Winter Haven entered the1920s the U.S. Census listed the population at 1597 people - a small but motivated populace that had embarked...

Polk County’s population increased by 93 percent between 1900 and 1910. Winter Haven’s population more than tripled from 429 to 1436...

WINTER HAVEN’S EARLY HISTORIC AFRICAN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT Florence Villa Station In the late 1990s Winter Haven completed a series of...

HENRY SNELL OPENS WINTER HAVEN’S FIRST BANK In 1892 a man named Henry W. Snell left his home in Georgia and relocated to the Polk County...

FREDERICK INMAN, M.D. AND FLORENCE VILLA In 1887 Dr. Frederick William Inman and his wife Florence Jewett Inman came to the area from...

The railroad brought development to central Florida and Polk County. Travel guides and brochures from the 1870s and 1880s describe the...

ABOUT THE CHINABERRY TREE In the beginning years of Winter Haven’s history, the early 1900s, a Chinaberry tree grew in the east-bound...