MUNN PARK THEN AND NOW: A HISTORY IN PICTURES
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INTRODUCTION
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Munn Park is an oasis of green in downtown Lakeland, where people can spend a quiet moment amidst the trees and flowers. It has been a part of the city’s landscape since before there was officially a City of Lakeland. Abraham Munn, after whom the park was eventually named, was a Louisville, Kentucky businessman, who in 1882 purchased 80 acres of Polk County land sight unseen. Those 80 acres were to become the heart of Lakeland. And the heart of those 80 acres was to become Munn Park.
Munn formed the Lakeland Improvement Company in February 1884. The company platted the 80 acre site, laid out streets, and offered lots for sale. In the course of doing this, the company produced what is most likely the first map of Lakeland (see images). Its 1884 map of the proposed town included in its center a “town square” or public park on land which Munn had set aside and later deeded to the town for that purpose. Munn also donated land just north of the public park to Henry Plant’s South Florida Railroad for use as rail yards and a terminal. He thought the park would be a pleasant sight for passengers to see when they disembarked from the trains. Munn further sweetened the pot by offering to build a depot on the site at his own expense if Plant agreed to make the fledgling town a regular stop on his railroad. Plant agreed and Lakeland’s future as a rail center and its survival were assured. Thus when the town of Lakeland was officially incorporated by a vote of its citizens on January 1, 1885, it had a public park and a railroad depot just to the north of the park.
Initially know as City Park and so designated on early city maps, the park was from the beginning the social and cultural heart of Lakeland. It hosted farmers’ markets, agricultural fairs, band concerts, political gatherings, and, in 1901, the first film ever to be shown in Lakeland. It was a refuge where passengers awaiting outgoing trains could stroll and enjoy the outdoors while they waited. The park even served as a temporary home for residents and business owners displaced by a devastating fire that destroyed more than a city block in 1904. People lived in crude shacks on the park grounds and businessmen set up open air stalls around the perimeter to sell their wares.
The City Commission recognized Abraham Munn’s contributions to Lakeland by renaming City Park Munn Park in his honor in 1908. Over the next few years, the Commission also authorized some additions to the newly named park. It authorized the Lakeland chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederate Veterans to erect a monument to Confederate veterans in the park. It was dedicated on June 3, 1910 and it still stands today in the center of Munn Park. The Commission had begun discussions about constructing a bandstand in the park as early as 1912 and authorized the project in 1915. The bandstand hosted numerous concerts and served as platform for countless political speakers until it was torn down during a renovation of the park in the late 1950’s.
Despite its heavy use by the citizens of Lakeland, the City Commission considered a number of proposals over the years to sell the land on which Munn Park sits. Minutes of Commission meetings in July 1924 document that the Commission passed a resolution asking the people of Lakeland to authorize the sale of Munn Park, and to use the proceeds from that sale to purchase land on Lake Mirror to build a civic center and park. Voters actually approved the resolution by a vote of 442 to 272. Fortunately, the city found other sources of funding to purchase the land for the Civic Center and Promenade, and Munn Park remained a downtown fixture. The City Commission also entertained proposals to build a federal building on the site of Munn Park in 1950 and a similar proposal to build a county office building in 1977. Both of these proposals were also rejected, much to the good fortune of the people of Lakeland.
While the City Commission considered and ultimately rejected proposals to sell Munn Park for commercial or government development, it had largely left the original layout of the park untouched. It had over the years authorized the construction of the Confederate Monument, a bandstand and a small fountain that complemented, but did not fundamentally alter the original design. In the late 1950s and early 1960’s, however, Munn Park fell victim to the well intentioned, but aesthetically misguided urban renewal movement sweeping the country.
The park’s simple pattern of an outer circular walk and bisecting inner walkways was replaced with a hodgepodge of meandering and crisscrossing walks. Worse, a mammoth hexagonal fountain was built in the southwest corner of the park. Dubbed the “waltzing waters” or the “magic fountain,” it combined multiple geysers of water with colored pulsating lights. Its size and garishness overwhelmed the understated landscape of Munn Park.
Finally, beginning in 1989, a combination of public and private funding totaling over $300,000 made it possible to restore Munn Park to much the way it looked in the 1920’s. The 1960’s hexagonal fountain and meandering walkways were uprooted, new benches were installed, a small decorative fountain was placed on the north side of the park, and a brick and wrought iron archway was constructed at the southwest entrance to the park at Kentucky Avenue and East Main Street.
The renovated and restored Munn Park once again became the social and cultural center of the city. It hosted afternoon and evening concerts, ethnic and holiday fairs and festivals, farmers’ markets, and became the regular home of Arts in the Park and Politics in the Park. Munn Park became again and remains the vibrant heart of downtown Lakeland, much as Abraham Munn envisioned when he set aside land for a town square in 1884.
Enjoy this small exhibit which shows the many faces and incarnations of Munn Park through vintage postcards and photographs.
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