The Academy - Lakeland, FL - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

The plaque is on the wall of the building where the Verizon store is located, and that is the address used below. It is at the intersection of East Lime Street and South Tennessee Avenue.

The text of the plaque reads:

On this site stood
"The Academy"
Lakeland's first public school.
It opened in 1884 and remained
at this location until 1902.
Dedicated by
Carl D. Brorein, President
General Telephone Company of Florida
Claude M. Harden Sr.
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Septemeber 1, 1959

Although I was not able to find information on the dedication of the plaque, I was able to find some history of the school in the Lakeland High School site, which is noted below:

Lakeland’s first public school was built in 1884-85 at the intersection of Tennessee Avenue and Lime Street. The corner, where the GTE building now stands, was then a beautiful piece of woodland that served as an excellent playground. The Academy, named after Plato’s school of philosophy near Athens, was a three hundred dollar shanty serving forty students. The structure also served as a church and a town hall; it was at The Academy that the townspeople of Lakeland voted to incorporate. This crude frame structure with its octagonal bell tower started with one room in which all grade levels were taught, but by 1897 almost two hundred school children attended.

On October 4, 1897, the Lakeland Academy burned down. A description of the disaster appeared in the Bartow Courier-Informant on October 6,1897:

Monday morning about 4 o’clock the Lakeland High School building was burned, with all of its contents. It is supposed to have been set by tramps, as a number of them had been driven out of the building on Sunday afternoon, and as it rained during the night it is but natural to suppose that these fellows went back into the building and when they left the next morning carelessly left a lighted match or a fire where it ignited and started the conflagration. The building and contents were insure for $800, an amount large enough to cover the value of the desks and books perhaps. School was stopped for one day only, the new Bryant building opposite Forbes drug store having been rented, where school opened Tuesday morning.

After the fire a temporary school was constructed on the same site. Each year additional classrooms were added, making it a long structure. At one time it was whitewashed. This facility served as Lakeland’s school until 1902, when the new brick school was built near Lake Wire.

Group that erected the marker: General Telephone Company of Florida and Polk County School System URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: 120 E Lime St Lakeland, FL USA 33801

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