Instructions:
1....Print this file.
2....At its end, click on "rules" to see a copy of the trail rules, print it, and then click where indicated at the end of the 3-page rules and patch order form to get back to the list of Florida trails.
3....If you want a hand-drawn map showing the locations of all of the sites, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Steve Rajtar, 1614 Bimini Dr., Orlando, FL 32806.
4....Hike the trail and order whatever patches you like (optional).
WARNING - This trail may pass through one or more neighborhoods which, although full of history, may now be unsafe for individuals on foot, or which may make you feel unsafe there. Hikers have been approached by individuals who have asked for handouts or who have inquired (not always in a friendly manner) why the hikers are in their neighborhood. Drugs and other inappropriate items have been found by hikers in some neighborhoods. It is suggested that you drive the hike routes first to see if you will feel comfortable walking them and, if you don't think it's a good place for you walk, you might want to consider (1) traveling with a large group, (2) doing the route on bicycles, or (3) choosing another hike route. The degree of comfort will vary with the individual and with the time and season of the hike, so you need to make the determination using your best judgment. If you hike the trail, you accept all risks involved.
This body of water, the second-largest lake in Polk County, was known as Okhakonkonhee from 1853 to 1883, then was called Crooked Lake. William Regan and others started a campaign in 1917 to have it renamed Lake Caloosa, and in 1923 that name was officially recognized by the U.S. Geological Survey Bureau. In 1949, it was changed back to Crooked Lake.
The first building for this school was built in 1921 of white sand lime brick manufactured in Plant City. Buff sand lime brick was used for trim, and the first roof was flat. On each side of the eight-foot entrance corridor were three classrooms. In 1923, it was named Babson Park Elementary School.
In 1925, a sloping tile roof was added, the outside walls were stuccoed, and the school auditorium was opened. Two classrooms, a heating unit and a cafeteria were added in 1962. Ten years later, four more classrooms and a learning center designed by Leslie G. Picket of Bartow, were added. A $145,000 media center with a library were built and connected to the rest of the school with a covered walkway in 1975.
A collection of children's books were transferred here in 1931 from the city library.
An earlier school was established in 1914 for the children of the area's earliest settlers. It was constructed on the Darling Loop, located north of Crooked Lake. The land was donated by Schubert Welling and the Hunts, with the condition that it would return to the Wellings if it ceased to be used as a school. Within three years, the class size rose to 18. In 1920, the school building was moved to Lake Buffram.
In 1958, the Crooked Lake Volunteer Fire Department obtained a charter. It was reincorporated eight years later as the Babson Park Volunteer Fire Department.
Three lots for the erection of a fire house were donated by the Babson Park Community Church. The fire house was built for $10,000.
To the north was located a citrus packing house, set back from the highway about 125 feet and located on a railroad spur. It was owned by Mr. Fairchild, and in its time it was probably the largest employer of workers in Babson Park. It was a busy place, but after it burned down it was never replaced.
J.B. Malloy owned a sawmill here, managed by William A. Buzzard. It cut rough lumber from the virgin pine trees that had been cleared to create the grove lands. The lumber was used for vegetable shipping crates.
A grocery store was opened here by Schubert Welling, who also served as postmaster for about 16 years. Later, the building housed the drug store operated by Harry Juvenal.
Winslow Webber built this garage in March of 1924, and leased it to others to operate. E.J. Lonn and Willis J. Cody ran it until 1927, making them the first to operate a garage in Babson Park.
In about 1920, the post office was located in a square building facing the road, which also housed Frank Cody's real estate office. In 1923, the post office moved to a wooden building which it rented next to the grocery store. From there, the post office was moved to the first floor of the northeast corner of the Kingsbury Building, and Tate Daves served as the postmaster. When Mr. McCallister constructed a new building for his store, the post office was moved into the southwest corner of that building, and later it moved to its present location, some distance north on the highway.
Looking to the southwest, you see a peninsula sticking out into Crooked Lake. This land was bought by Joseph R. Guy in 1882, and in 1911 it became owned by Erle Laurance Wirt, Sr. He cleared the hammock, built a home, installed an irrigation system, planted a ten-acre citrus grove, and found poles that may have been used to build Seminole chickees. Arrowheads were found from here to Cody Villa to the south by Beth Wirt. Erle Wirt established in 1918 a garden of ornamental plants and trees, using exotic plants furnished by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Just to the south on the neck of the peninsula was located the home of Orren Hayes Ohlinger. He originally came from Meigs County, Ohio, and in 1913 bought 60 acres from James G. Carter. It was known as Guy's Hammock for former owner Joseph R. Guy. At one time, the acreage included land across Cody Cove, including the former clubhouse and the golf course.
Not far from that was a home known as the Keuster Cottage, a house built on the peninsula after 1915 by Orren for his son, Robert. It was located just to the south and west of Orren's home and was unoccupied for a long time, overgrown with trees, vines and other plants.
This was built to be the southern headquarters of the offices of Babson's Reports, a publication of Roger W. Babson. There were apartments on both sides to house his clients who came to Florida during the winter. This is the only surviving building built for Roger Babson at the townsite, other than the garage.
In 1927, it served as the college's administration building, and then as the library, starting with 1,800 volumes. In 1931, it moved the 2,000 volumes to the Woman's Club building.
Mrs. Roger W. Babson, the wife of an internationally famous economist, founded this college on April 6, 1927, for the education of women going into business careers. Her three unswerving objectives were business training, good physical health, and right moral and religious living. She felt that this would strengthen her students' intangible reserves to meet emergencies which could arise.
Inititially, the college occupied only the Caloosa Inn, the twin to the Kingsbury Building. It later expanded to include the two arcade buildings attached to the Caloosa Inn and the Kingsbury Building, nearly all of the original townsite buildings. In the process, some of the apartments and small businesses had to be vacated. The Kingsbury became part of the campus in 1931, when the Hugh Loudon/Marjorie Briggs family vacated it to move to their next residence, Lonn Villa, in Hillcrest Heights. In 1956, the campus was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Wood Keen of Mountain Lake, and the buildings were vacated in June of that year. The college moved across Scenic Hwy. to a new lakeside campus and the Keens planned to convert the old campus into a school for boys. Their deaths soon after ended that plan, and the buildings stood vacant for 15 years.
People who had bought portions of the campus demolished the buildings, eventually leaving only an old bank vault. It was later pitched into a deep hole and covered with dirt.
Grace Knight (Babson) founded this college and named it after her first granddaughter, Camilla Grace Webber, on whose birthdate the founding officially took place. Camilla Webber graduated from the college in May of 1949.
Behind the present college buildings, on the lakeshore, Charles H. Matthews began construction of a 61 x 51 foot building. Before it was complete, the 1926 hurricane reduced the concrete block walls to rubble. After it was finally completed, C.P. Selden leased it as a recreational center. It was a popular gathering place on the lake known as the Selden Casino, with a program of water sports, speed boat racing, dances and picnics. Sailboat and outboard motorboat races were conducted there, and Dick and Malcolm Pope (before the creation of Cypress Gardens) often participated in the latter. Later, the Casino was the location of a long series of forums conducted by Weber College, featuring renowned lecturers and personalities.
This huge block of granite was shipped to the college by Roger Ward Babson in 1957. It honors the memory of Rev. John Rogers, an ancestor of Babson who was burned at the stake near London on February 4, 1555, for translating the Bible into English and teaching the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy.
The block was placed on a foundation near the lake, prepared by Turner Marble & Granite Company of Tampa. It was later moved to this spot where it could be seen by more people.
Before the college moved to this side of Scenic Hwy., this was the site of a two-story building and a shack with a good view of the lake through the oak trees. They were used to house workers here to build roads and plant groves.
In July of 1961, the Ridge Audubon Society, Inc. received a gift of three acres of land from Webber College, adjacent to its campus. It has a 300-foot frontage on Scenic Hwy. and a 400-foot depth, but it also has permission from the college to create and maintain nature trails on 50 acres of the adjoining college land. This provides a guided walk of natural beauty along the shore of Crooked Lake.
In the early days, this was called the Jolly Road because of its loop-to-loop, sharply curved, up and down route. The Schubert Welling home was located at this intersection.
In 1982, this congregation was organized and the mother church in Lake Wales bought 3 1/2 acres here. Robert C. Hannan served as its first part-time pastor, and services were held in the elementary school. Construction of the present sanctuary began in 1984.
Edith Low Babson, the only daughter of Roger and Grace Babson, and her husband, Winslow Lewis Webber, moved into this new house in 1924. It was built by Roger Babson for $15,000 and was the first house built north of Scenic Hwy. Designed with a Spanish style, the exterior was covered with cement and the roof was the typical red tile.
The house was bought by Leonard Spangenberg and Charles J. McCullough, and was subsequently deeded to Webber College and used by two college presidents as their residence. In 1963, it was vandalized, then bought by the Stephens family who remodeled it and turned it into their home. In 2004, it was purchased by Stephen and Holly Wallace, who renamed it.
Before moving closer to the lake, Webber College occupied several buildings on this side of Scenic Hwy. They included the Caloosa Building, designed by George F. Milo and constructed in 1925 by W.C. Robertson & Co. as an inn to accommodate 40 guests. It had a Spanish style with an attic and a basement. On the first floor was a Japanese-operated tea room.
W.C. Robertson & Co. of Bartow erected the Kingsbury Building in 1923-24, measuring 52 x 80 feet having had two full stories and a basement. The downstairs had a real estate office, four stores, Schubert S. Welling's Cash and Carry grocery and a bank, and upstairs was Mr. Babson's offices and the Babson Statistical Laboratory. The second floor was later turned into several furnished apartments and one large apartment for the Hugh Loudon/Marjorie Briggs family, its only occupant before the college took it over in 1931. It was basically one large room, divided into 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge L-shaped room, a kitchen and a dining room which opened onto a balcony just above the bank. A storage room over the northwest corner for a short time was rented to the Harry Juvenal family while they looked for more permanent accommodations.
In that building on March 10, 1924, the Babson Park State Bank opened for business. In 1933, it was renamed Scenic Highlands State Bank. Although it voluntarily liquidated in 1934, it was only the second one in the state to ever do so and pay all depositors 100% of the amounts of their deposits. The bank's liquidation was overseen by C.P. Selden.
The campus also included the Arcade Buildings, two long buildings erected in 1925 by W.C. Robertson & Co. to fill in the space between the Kingsbury and Caloosa Buildings. In them were the Loudon-Highfield real estate offices, a lumber business office, and the office of a civil engineer. At the north end of the Arcade Building attached to the Kingsbury Building was a very popular barber shop, and a door at its rear led to a one-lane bowling alley.
A grocery store located in one of the Arcade Buildings was bought from Mr. Welling by Edward S. and Alice L. Byron, who ran it from 1925 until 1935. They sold it to James Alvie McCallister and his wife, Ruth Chamberlin McCallister, who renamed it McCallister's Grocery. It later became the Classroom Building for Webber College when the McCallisters moved their grocery business into a new Babson building across from the garage.
The post office moved here in 1976, to a building built and owned by Mr. and Mrs. Harold A. Dorstn of Minster, Ohio.
This corner in late 1977 became the site of a branch of the American Bank, which opened with president Sidney J. Porter of Lake Wales.
The first Babson Park railroad station was a raised platform under a covered roof, located here. The first train left from here for Frostproof in January of 1912. The following year, a combination passenger and freight depot was erected. In 1917, the line was extended to Moore Haven, Clewiston, Immokalee and Sunniland. Passenger service ended in 1954 and freight trains continued to operate on an as needed basis to Lake Wales and Frostproof.
This community was known as Crooked Lake until March of 1923, when the citizens met at Hillcrest Lodge and voted to rename it Babson Park. Two months later, the name of the Atlantic Coast Line station was also changed to Babson Park.
Roger W. Babson donated a lot on the lakeshore to the Woman's Club for the erection of a clubhouse, but the club did not meet Babson's deadline for starting construction. He took that lot back and instead gave them this one, with the present clubhouse being built in 1930-31.
This road is named after members of the Cody family. Arthur Cody and his family came to Florida in January of 1916 for a visit and stayed in a house near Crooked Lake, which then had no electricity and was heated by a fireplace in the main room. The house was later enlarged and modernized, and belonged to Frank Cody.
Arthur built another house with inside plumbing and screened windows. In 1917, another was built for Lindus Cody. An old shack was brought down from the woods and made into a community dining room. By 1920, Cody Villa had become a compound of six buildings located northwest of the intersection of Wes Mann and Cody Villa Rds., south of Wirt's Point.
This black congregation pastored by Donnie Colvin and J.P. Austin used a small wooden building which had become badly deteriorated by 1950. It was known as the Second Macedonia Church.
In 1950, Josephine Rustgard donated about $30,000 to build a new one on land donated by Arthur H. Stafford, H.H. Hollister and W.G. Fyler of the Citrus Grove Development Co. The present interdenominational sanctuary was built by Arthur N. Kirch and W.H. Duncan of Lake Wales, and was dedicated on October 21, 1950. The parsonage next door was named after Mrs. Rustgard.
This church was also the home of an early school for black children, with sole teacher Effie Jefferson Atmore and 11 pupils.
The Cody, Wheaton and Thayer families and others considered establishing a church in about 1920. Under the guidance of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., Dr. William C. Rommell came to Crooked Lake and helped found the Crooked Lake Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. C.H. Matthews erected the first church building, completed in 1922 for $3,500.
The name was changed to Babson Park Community Church in 1932. A fellowship hall was dedicated to the memory of Grace Knight Babson in 1968. The following year, the church was moved and what had been the pastor's study became the present narthex where visitors enter and sign the guest book. In 1981, the church affiliated with the United Church of Christ, and in 1989 dissolved that relationship.
This land extending from Scenic Hwy. westward to Palmetto Ave. and north to the lake, was owned in the early 1920s by Irving A. Yarnell and H.E. Fairchild.
Yarnell, a retired banker, had come to Florida in 1917 and formed a partnership with Fairchild, called the Southern Land Company of Crooked Lake. It specialized in land development and research for oil. The partnership broke up in 1918.
The first home of Irwin and Josephine Yarnell was a rambling wooden one, later sold to Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Lonn. It consisted of 7 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a huge living room, a large dining room, a 20' x 20' kitchen, an office, a servants' home in the rear, and two outbuildings used for storage and garaging. It burned to the ground in 45 minutes in 1936.
Yarnell's second house was built for $15,000 and was named Villa Entropal. Built of brick with a red tile roof, it was sold to Frank Leslie of East Orange, New Jersey, in 1922. It was later owned by August Felt.
Yarnell was also involved with developing Saint Anne's Shrine, a French Canadian colony of about 20 families. The community had no commercialization, just the Sepulchre, the Saint Christopher Monument, the Monument to Saint Theresa, and the Lady of Lourdes Grotto, which were visited by hundreds of people until the early 1940s. The shrine has since been razed.
Harry Vissering became the vice president of the Goodyear Zeppelin Company in Chicago, and was recognized as an expert on lighter-than-air-craft. He suffered in the 1929 stock market crash and retired to Florida on 25 acres he purchased here from the De Lavergne family. He extensively remodeled an existing home to make it bear some resemblance to a Normandy castle, into which he moved in 1931. One of the bathrooms was renovated with tile, onyx and gold plated fixtures, for the cost of $17,000 dollars. Through this locked gate, a small portion of one of the towers can be seen. The Graf Zeppelin, on its 1933 flight across the U.S., flew over Babson Park to salute Mr. Vissering. On another occasion, the dirigible Los Angeles hovered over the lake to honor Mr. Vissering.
Until as late as 1870, there was a small Seminole camp in this vicinity. They went to the lake for water at the bottom of the hill, where the road is at its lowest point.
This street is named after H.E. Fairchild of Minnesota, who desired a new place to spend his winter months. In 1912, he met Dr. Inman of Winter Haven, who suggested he visit this area. Fairchild met with Glenn Skipper in Bartow, who showed him land on Crooked Lake, owned by Ed Flood of Lakeland. Fairchild bought several hundred acres.
He founded Citrus Grove Development Company, and started the town of Hillcrest Heights in 1917, which developed about 2,500 acres of citrus.
H.E. and Adella Fairchild built a home south of the lake with extensive gardens. It later was owned by Roger Babson, who bought it to house the president and members of the faculty of Webber College, and then by the Joseph Meier family of the Passion Play, and then by Leon Wells. The Wells family restored it to its original appearance.
Southern Land Co. built a handsome club house here in 1916. By early 1917, the Lakeside Lodge and nearby cottages were filled with guests, but it burned down in November of 1918. It was rebuilt in 1921 with 100 rooms the following year at a cost of $250,000.
It was renamed the Hillcrest Lodge and in 1925 was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Jerome Forbes. It burned down again during the summer of 1926. With insurance money, it was immediately rebuilt by Charles Forbes, with Charlie Matthews as the building contractor. The present lodge is a stuccoed, two-story building with wood trim. It has 22 guest rooms.
The "Minnetonka", a large yacht owned by the Crooked Lake Navigation Company, was launched on Crooked Lake in 1920. They kept it docked at the Hillcrest Lodge boathouse. Both the boathouse and the boat burned in July of 1932. The Forbes family remained connected to the Lodge for decades as owners and/or operators.
Crooked Lake-Babson Park Rediscovered, by Louis Quinn (Cody Publications 1990)
Crown Jewel of the Highlands: Lake Wales, Florida, by Janyce Barnwell Ahl (Lake Wales Library Association 1983)
Guide to the Small and Historic Lodgings of Florida, by Herbert L. Hiller (Pineapple Press, Inc. 1991)
History of Polk County, Florida, by M.F. Hetherington (The Mickler House 1971)
Webber College Catalogue, (Webber College 1993-95)
Yesterday's Polk County, by Louise K. Frisbie (E.A. Seeman Publishing, Inc. 1976)
E-mail from Loudon Briggs, who lived in Babson Park from 1925 to 1940
Click here for a copy of the trail rules.