Edited by Spessard Stone
The Palatka Daily News, Saturday, April 16, 1887:
The Liveliest of all the Rising Florida Towns-What Has Been Done
Bowling Green, Fla., April 14.
Talk about enterprise! It is only a few months since the Florida Southern Railway built a commodious depot at this point the settlers in the vicinity gave them a part of their lands as an inducement.
Mr. A. I. Ross, a live Buckeye, came along and proposed taking a large interest in the new town site if all the parties owning land within a mile or so of the location would join him in building up a solid town, no paper 'scheme.'
A meeting was called, a joint stock company organized and everyone present took more or less stock, each agreeing to work for one object--to build up a town and country in which it will be pleasant to live; to invite energetic, industrious, moral people to join us; to sell lots at such prices as to induce actual settlers to improve-to make a public park and plant it with all kinds of tropical fruits and shrubbery; to build a public school house and a public church building; to allow no saloons in our midst-we have no room for "bummers or loafers."
And now, what have we accomplished? On the 1st of May a weekly newspaper will be published--printed on the town site, not printed in New York and sent here for distribution.
We have a post-office, several stores, a hotel, a saw mill, a planing mill, and, best of all, the surrounding country is fast settling up with producers.
Hundreds of acres are being planted in oranges, lemons, limes, bananas, guavas, grapes, cocoanuts, and vegetables of all kinds are being raised to supply Northern markets.
We are fifty miles from Trabue City [Punta Gorda], in the healthiest locality of South Florida, on high, rolling land.
The Florida Southern Railway offers special reduced rates to those seeking homes at and near Bowling Green.
More anon from the Omnibus.
Bartow Advance Courier, April 20, 1887:
It was our pleasure to spend last Saturday [April 16] in the above mentioned village and vicinity, and to say that we were greatly surprised is a mild expression. This place is located on the Florida Southern Railroad, about twenty miles south of Bartow, just over the Polk county line in Manatee. The general impression formed from seeing the place in simply passing over the road is not a good one but "appearances are deceitful."
Through the kindness of the young and efficient postmaster, Mr. Wm. Mason, we were driven out to the home of I. A. Mason, the energetic and wide awake land agent of the town. His place, directly west from the depot, just one mile, is worthy of special mention, the first attractive feature being the soil, its location and elevation.
The soil is dark, firm and productive, and over twenty acres of it in grove, the trees of which are evidence of the superior character of the soil. Orange, lemon, peach, mulberry, and grape-fruit trees are to be found on the place and all are growing luxuriantly, the foliage being of the rich green peculiar to our own section here, as we thought.
Mr. Mason has a splendid two-story frame house, complete in every respect, good yards, splendid surroundings, perfect drainage, the best land, twenty acres of fine grove, forty acres in cultivation and many acres of woodland, making it one of the completest places we have ever seen lately, and we do not think the place is for sale either.
There are many places near his, all of the same character, only not quite so old and extensively improved.
Mr. Cyrus Jones, the leading merchant of the town and one of its most generous citizens, has a fine young grove of fifteen or twenty acres, situated immediately in front of the place just described. On an adjoining tract of five acres he intends at an early date to build a residence which will, in every way, compare with the other beautiful surroundings.
H. F. Davis, of Monroe City, Missouri, has a nice grove and some good land.
Mr. McLean's place is in fine condition, and is another evidence of what may be accomplished, with a little work and good sand.
The Union Grove is in charge of J. K. Freeman of Uniontown, Kentucky, who is in a shareholder in it. The grove comprises eighty acres, all in a solid body, which has been planted in good two-year-old orange trees. It is owned principally by nonresidents, many of whom expect to make their homes here in the future.
Time and space forbid us saying more, only to add that Bowling Green, with two good stores, post office, depot, real estate agency, two good saw mills, hotel owned and managed by Mrs. Waite of Iowa assisted by her two gay and charming daughters, which makes a pleasant and desirable place for the tired and hungry and a large and fertile back country filled with energetic and hard-working men, is bound to be a village of no little importance, one which the whole of South Florida will be proud of and one for which we shall always take pleasure in doing whatever we can.
These articles were respectively published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of April 28, 1994 and April 9, 1992.
See also:
Bowling Green, Florida in the Spring of 1887
Bowling Green, Florida In April 1887
Bowling Green, Florida Of 1896
Bowling Green's Big Blaze of December 1903
Bowling Green, Florida An Early History