Lake Alfred, Florida
city in Polk County, Florida, United States of America
Lake Alfred is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was approximately 6,374 at the 2020 US census.
History
The city was established soon after the South Florida Railroad reached the area in 1883. It had a number of early names, including Fargo, Chubb and Bartow Junction.
The settlement was named Fargo by snowbirds escaping the cold of Fargo, North Dakota. They at first named the settlement after their hometown, but the United States Postal Service protested after a series of mix-ups with the town of Largo. The town then became Chubb and later Bartow Junction because it lay at the junction of a railroad leading south into the county seat Bartow.
The name Lake Alfred was adopted in 1913 and was taken from the nearest large lake, named after Alfred Parslow, who came to Florida in 1877 and obtained a charter to build the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad.
In 1917, the State of Florida established the first off-campus center for the University of Florida in Lake Alfred, the Citrus Experiment Station to study ways of improving citrus growing.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lake Alfred, Florida” as city in Polk County, Florida, United States of America. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as city in Polk County, Florida, United States of America. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2153988. VIAF identifies the subject as 151908973. The Library of Congress control number is n81110842. Authority coordinates are 28.094, -81.725. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1883, 1913 and 1877.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Lake Alfred, Florida”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Lake Alfred, Florida primary sources, Lake Alfred, Florida archive and Lake research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lake Alfred, Florida”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Lake Alfred, Florida” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.