The City of Frostproof is a tiny town tucked between Clinch Lake and Lake Reedy in the south east corner of Polk County, in the central portion of Florida. This area is known as part of the “ridge,” a series of long, slow rolling hills of various types of sand, limestone, lakes and creeks. Natural history for the area shows the center of Florida was once a long sand bar that grew into rolling sand dunes and over millions of years became the Florida we know today. Evidence of white beach sand can still be seen in what are called “scrub islands,” patches of land, undisturbed by development, that have plant and animal life found no where else on Earth.
The east side of Frostproof is sheltered by 26,000 acres of the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest. To the north and east of the city is The Nature Conservancy’s Tiger Creek Preserve, another 4,805 acres of protected lands. Longleaf pine forest, scrub oak islands, oak hammocks with stands of cypress and lob-lolly bays in the wetter areas, with tannin water creeks and lakes make up most of this preserved land. For more information, click here: The Nature Conservancy, Lake Wales Ridge Program and Lake Wales Ridge State Forest.
One main road runs through the center of town, U.S. Highway 17, also called Scenic Highway. To the north is Babson Park, home of Webber International University, and Lake Wales, to the south, is Avon Park. West, across Clinch Lake stretches U.S. Highway 27, one of the main traffic corridors for the state of Florida. Pasture land, citrus groves and a few retirement mobile home communities surround the town at this time.
For the last eighty years or so Frostproof’s base commerce has been citrus and cattle. Citrus growers ship fresh fruit all over the world from Ben Hill Griffin, Inc. in Frostproof and Hunt Bros. in Lake Wales. Fresh Florida juice is shipped world wide from Frostproof by Cargill Citro-America and through Florida Natural in Lake Wales. Some of the Valencia oranges grown on these sunny hills end up in Tropicana Juice in Brandon, Florida.
A second source of commerce for the area is winter residents who own second homes or mobile homes and winter here where the climate is considered mild and sunny.
When the roads here were sand, in the early 1900’s, the town was named Keystone, then Lake Mont and later changed, after some argument, to Frostproof. The idea was the name would be memorable and help the town citrus growers market their fresh fruit shipped north by rail.
Today, the population is about 3,000 residents. The city is 2.8 square miles, but several annexations are in process (June 2006). The city provides water service to approximately 1,200 customers, but that number fluctuates in the winter season. A number of historic buildings are in the process of being renovated in the downtown area. Downtown features shops, banks, doctors offices, churches, parks, a library, art gallery, an historic museum and a lake at either end of the main east/west road, Wall Street. Favorite recreation of area residents includes: hunting, fishing, boating, swimming, skiing, racquetball, soccer, softball, baseball, basketball and little league. Home town high school football games always draw large crowds.
