Higley: A Florida Ghost Town
- citruslandfl
- Apr 7
- 6 min read
Edward Emery Higley arrived in Central Florida in 1883 and played a leading role in creating two of the region’s most enchanting placenames. He had yet to celebrate his 30th birthday when he partnered in founding the towns of Higley and Kismet, two Orange County towns then, each being an enchanting Lake County Ghost Town today. City building, however, was not all Edward Higley set out to accomplish, for he also partnered in trying to build two railroads – one for each of his two Citrus Belt towns.
Little has been said over the years of the young man or his two towns and two railroads, despite each placename being among the most often asked about “ghost towns” anytime this author talks about area settlements of the 19th century. Even when asked if I would do a history presentation for the Umatilla Library, for example, the invite came with a request to include a discussion on the town of Higley.
Now seems like a perfect time then for this blog, a follow-up to my recent in-person presentation at the Umatilla Library, Umatilla: Gateway to Florida’s Great Lake Region.
Higley & Kismet: Two Intriguing Florida Ghost Towns
Edward was a dreamer. A big dreamer! Born and raised at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Edward Emery Higley, following the lead of hundreds of Citrus Belt land speculators and town builders who rushed to own a piece of Central Florida’s wilderness in the early 1880s, made his first purchase of 2,029 acres on 12 April 1883. Four months later, on 20 August 1883, George W. Webb, one of Edward’s several partners, began serving as Postmaster of the Higley Post Office.
Webb & Higley Real Estate was soon launched as the official Higley land office. Newspaper ads were placed throughout the State touting “Cheap Land, Healthy Land, No Mosquitoes, No Sand Flies, No Malaria.” Details of the new Orange County town (later Lake County) gave the town’s size as “10,000 acres, plenty of room for thousands of people.”
One of hundreds of Citrus Belt towns founded in the 1880s, many of which were established on railroad routes, Higley was at a disadvantage from the start because of its off the beaten path location. Higley ads, however, said a “railroad was building toward us, sure to be here by fall of 1884.” There had in fact been talk of a Tavares to Palatka railroad, or another coming to Fort Mason from Ocala, each of which could have come through Higley, but neither of the railroads were being built, so Edward Higley decided it was time to take matters in his own hands.
The Silver Springs, Higley & Southern Railway was organized on 1 April 1885. Two of the four organizers were partners Edward E. Higley and George W. Webb. The train’s path was described as 40 miles, running south from Silver Springs to Higley, then continuing southbound to Lisbon, where Higley’s train would meet the Leesburg to Fort Mason railroad.
The train to Higley was never built, but its proposed path explains the town’s Railroad Avenue, running north-south through downtown, crossing Boulevard Street in the center of Higley, where the partners built the Higley House Hotel. Today, the intersection of Sunset Drive and Em En El Grove Road is situated nearly identical to the 1880s intersection of Boulevard and Railroad Avenue.
The Higley House, three stories tall, boasted of having new furniture and fixtures when it opened for guests on March 1, 1885. Built at a cost of $5,000, the hotel, situated on 1.25 acres, fronted “Boulevard, the principal street, near Railroad Avenue in downtown Higley.” The description added that “a large barn adjacent to the hotel provided space for “twelve horses and three buggies or wagons.”
In addition to Railroad Avenue, several other north-south streets were named for partners. Haas Street was likely named for Solomon Haas, while the namesake of Webb Street was George W. Webb. East-West roadways had names such as Ravenswood and Lancaster. Heading east via Ravenswood Avenue led in the direction of the town of Ravenswood on Lake Dorr, a route one would take if visiting Higley’s sister city, Kismet. Lancaster Avenue was certainly named for Dr. George W. Lancaster of DeLand, another of Edward E. Higley’s partners in The Silver Springs, Higley & Southern Railway venture.
Most towns established in 1880s Orange County have a recorded Plat on file even for towns that later became part of Lake, Osceola or Seminole County. The new county also has recorded Plats even when the original was filed in Orange County. Higley, however, founded in Orange County in 1883, does not have a recorded Plat on file at either county. But the Lake County Appraiser’s office does give Higley Block and Lot numbers with many of the legal descriptions along with a note saying the Plat of Higley was unrecorded, helpful information allowing us to determine now the locations of certain Higley features appearing on the Map of Higley shown above.
One such feature we can locate now is Lake Eva. Appearing on the Higley map as occupying much of Block 37, then flowing south into Park Lake in Blocks 38 and 69. These lakes appear on current maps as unnamed. Lake Eva is now east of County Road 452 and north of Emerald Avenue, and both Eva and Park are shown on the aerial photo below.
Lake Eva is of interest because Eva Higley was Edward Higley’s younger sister. Both were born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Edward in 1853, Eva in 1856. Lake Eva was a memorial to Edwards little sister, who died at age seven.
Namesakes of all the Higley named waterways remain a mystery, but on the chance they may one day be identified, they are: Lake Rosa; Lake Mary; Lake Carrie; Lake Adams and Lake Allie. Two others were named Lake Rest and Lake Higley.
Prior to becoming a Lake County town in 1887, the Orange Gazetteer of that year provided a detailed description of Higley. The town still did not have a train running up and down Railroad Street, but James Forch of Higley offered daily stagecoach service to Lisbon and Fort Mason for fifty cents. The town by 1887 had grown to two hotels, a public school, a Methodist Church, a sawmill, and three stores.
Although a ghost town now, the Town of Higley did outlive its founder. Edward Emery Higley died in 1895, seven months before the first of two disastrous freezes killed the vast majority of Central Florida’s citrus trees.
Edward was laid to rest in Eustis, Florida, or perhaps not. The dreamer who imagined two great Central Florida towns, so it appears, ended up having two burial sites as well. A Find-A-Grave memorial gives Eustis as Edward’s final burial place, while another Find-A-Grave memorial, in far-off Cedar Rapids, says Edward had died in Eustis but was buried in Iowa. Mysterious in life, it’s only fitting that Edward Emery Higley should remain mysterious in death as well.
If his hometown Eustis newspaper had reported Higley’s death we could not find it, nor could we locate an Iowa obituary, but the Pike County Dispatch of Milford, PA did publish the following notice on 18 April 1895: “News of the death of E. E. Higley, which occurred at Eustis, Lake County, Florida, on April 10th, has been received by relatives in this county. Mr. Higley was a nephew of the late James Emery of Dingman’s, and in his younger days frequently visited this section. He was about 40 years of age.” Edward Higley was forty-one to be exact.
Two Books Referenced in My Umatilla Library Talk
Were: Historic Florida Lakes & Waterways, and
Tavares: Darling of Orange County, Birthplace of Lake County
Twenty years after Edward’s death, news from his town of Higley could still be found on the pages of the Eustis Lake Region paper. A. G. Thomas, on 10 December 1915, wrote a letter to Santa addressed at Higley, Fla., asking for a “pair of stockings, handkerchief and a baby doll.” A lad named Brown Roberts of Higley also wrote Santa, asking for a “gun and some firecrackers.”
Edward Emery Higley is a name worth remembering in the history of Lake County, and not only because a Ghost Town bears the man’s name. Higley also partnered in establishing the town of Kismet, six miles east of his town of Higley, where one of the most eventful dates in its history occurred on 1 January 1888. On that day in Kismet, Flora Call married Elias Disney, the future parents of Walt Disney, founder of Walt Disney World. But I’ll have more to say on that town’s history in my next blog - Kismet: A Florida Ghost Town.
In the meantime, I invite you to peruse my website pages for details of each of my books on Central Florida history. You can also subscribe to my FREE blog and receive notices when each new blog is posted. Also, my homepage tells of each of upcoming in-person presentations.
Until next time!
Rick Cronin
Comments