1956 Florida Realty Bureau Promotional Pictorial Map of Highlands County, Florida

Live healthier... live happier... live for less!

This is an unrecorded c. 1956 pictorial promotional map for Highlands Park Estates, a housing development in Highlands County, Florida. This colorful and persuasive sheet serves as a reminder that, while less numerous than the housing developments that sprang up along Florida's coasts around the same time, Florida's interior was also a destination for new migrants in the Postwar period.

A Closer Look

The sheet consists of a pictorial map at top and promotional text and images along the sides and bottom. The map of Florida includes illustrations of several landmarks, including the relatively nearby Bok Tower in Lake Wales, as well as depictions of local recreational activities, economic products, and wildlife in various parts of the state. The location of the Highlands Park Estates development is highlighted and pointed out with a large arrow. Promotional text and images fill out the recto and continue onto the verso, discussing benefits of both the development specifically and of Florida more generally, including affordability, low taxes, an amenable climate, and modern conveniences.

Promoting Florida's Interior

When this map was produced, Highlands County was still relatively young, having been created in 1921 from portions of neighboring counties. While Florida's coasts, especially around Miami and Tampa Bay, saw rapid bursts of growth in the 1920s and again after the Second World War, the state's often remote, swampy, and inaccessible interior generally did not. However, Highlands County's relatively high elevation, cheap land, and highway access to the coasts made it a good candidate for spillover growth as land on the coasts became more expensive. Although Highlands Park Estates did not exactly become the next Palm Beach, the planned development site and nearby areas along U.S. Route 27 did see steady population growth in the Postwar period, roughly fifty percent per decade, that continued into the early 21st century.

Publication History and Census

This promotional sheet was prepared by the Florida Realty Bureau, managing agents of the development, in the mid-1950s. It is undated, but the prices given for lots are equivalent to those listed in a dated 1956 promotional map of the same development also offered by us (HighlandsParkEstates-flrealtybureau-1956). We have been unable to locate any other examples of this map in institutional collections or on the market.

Condition

Very good. Light wear along original fold lines.