Florida Tricks Of Old

  “Well if you believe that, I got some Florida land for sale!”
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What if I told you a Florida town got its name to fool a freeze? In the late 1800s, citrus was king, and Polk County was booming, but the freezes of 1894–95 were desperate. Investors in one little settlement on the Lake Wales Ridge needed a rebrand. Originally called Keystone City, they heard another town had that name, so a new one was chosen: Frostproof. The message was clear: here, your oranges are safe. Of course, that wasn’t true. A freeze hit just a few years later, and Frostproof froze like the rest of Central Florida, but the name? It was clever marketing before marketing was a thing, a gamble written right on the map. Today, that gamble still echoes in the name on every street sign and fruit crate. Started as a hopeful promise, it became a Polk County legend—part truth, part myth, all Florida.