Sebring Was A Frontier Town

When George Sebring bought 9,000 acres in 1911 to build his town, not even a sand trail ran south from Avon Park.

The early years of Sebring were marked with hardship, sand hills and pine trees - lots of it.

Workers used buck saws to chop down trees in the thickets that covered the Central Florida frontier. The trunks were then loaded on a portable saw mill that planed the surface. The wood went to make the first modest frame houses that dotted the Circle, but at that time people didn't realize that Central Florida's pine wood could not hold up to termites. Many of these structures had to be torn down and replaced.

Traveling on the region's sugar sand was another pain early settlers learned to live with. Automobiles got stuck in the sand and had to be pushed for miles by hand. Travelers who bought their cars from the North found them of little or no use, according to "Sebring, City on the Circle," by Stephen Olausen.

The book narrates the frustration of one woman who drove her Hudson 640 from Haines City to Sebring in 1912. After eight hours of traveling from Haines City to Avon Park, Rose Graham Vinten was glad she took the advice of Avon Park natives to stop for the day before proceeding to Sebring. She finally reached her destination by noon but all five children had to push the car most of the way until townspeople rescued the family in front of what is now the Nan-Ces-O-Wee hotel.

There were many triumphs, too, like the Methodist Church built in a day in 1913. The whole town turned out for the project, men with hammers and women with the food and lemonade. Drummers roused up the town and the work began at 6:30 a.m. By 7 p.m., the church was ready, complete with chairs, a preacher and a service that celebrated the daylong effort, said Carole Goad, archivist with the Sebring Historical Society.

'The Founding of Sebring," from "Historic Properties Survey of Highlands County and the City of Lake Placid" paints some of the other hardships.

Electricity was available only five hours in the day, and only in the evenings. A wood-fired, steam-driven generator, owned by George Sebring, supplied electric service. Phones were needed. So in 1912, a telephone line was strung on trees through a forest in Arcadia - about 50 miles away - and residents had 11 telephone stations to use.

But the raw frontier town began to slowly acquire some semblance of civilization. Simple, wood frame structures led to mansions and luxury hotels for Northern winter visitors. By 1917, the community had 700 residents, according to "Sebring On The Circle." Commercial buildings sat on 14 of the 20 lots fronting Circle Drive. By Jan. 1926, Sebring's population reached 10,000 - almost the same as today.