The first permanent white settler in Avon Park was Oliver Martin Crosby, a Connecticut native who moved to the area in 1884 to study the wildlife of the Everglades.

Avon Park resident Charles R. Head convinced his friend Sam Breadon, the owner of the Cardinals, to move the baseball team's spring training ground to the city.

At the end of the agreement in 1929, Breadon moved the Cardinals' spring training ground to Bradenton, citing inadequate hotel facilities and poor field conditions.

Avon Park mayor C. S. Donaldson disputed Breadon's accusations and claimed that the city had five excellent hotels and that the field was well maintained, had a modern clubhouse to accommodate players, and was even built to the specifications of the team, under the supervision of a Cardinals groundskeeper.

[8][9] In September 1949, the city elected the youngest mayor in United States history at the time, 21-year-old Wiley Sauls Jr., largely due to the votes of the second precinct, which was populated mostly by black residents.

The incumbent city council met four days after the election and heard Wilkes' protest, who claimed that there were voter irregularities in the second precinct and that they should install him as mayor.

Wilkes alleged in this second meeting that the second precinct had not returned all of its blank ballots after the election and that this called into question the validity of the results.

Sauls Jr., Kirkland, and Sparks hired attorney Keith Collyer, who argued that it was unlawful that a mere claim of irregularities would give the council the authority to install themselves into office in the face of a challenge to their power.

While the circuit court sided with Sauls Jr., Kirkland, and Sparks, and demanded that the three be put into power, Wilkes and the council through attorney S. C. Pardee Sr. pushed the case upwards through the judicial system and also began to argue that the second precinct's inspector, W. J. Robinson, had helped people to cast their ballots.

The Supreme Court of Florida also voted in favor of Sauls Jr., Kirkland, and Sparks, and the three were then installed as mayor and councilmen respectively and put municipal governments on notice that they did not have the authority to invalidate an election in order to remain in power.

In 1958, the Chemical Corps conducted further tests from Avon Park Air Force Range and determined that mosquitoes could be easily disseminated from helicopters, devices dropped from planes, or by being deployed from the ground.

Chemical Corps researchers found that the mosquitoes would spread more than a mile in each direction from where they were deployed and that they would quickly enter all types of buildings.

[16] On October 28, 1980, the documents detailing the experiments were declassified as part of the Church of Scientology's legal battles with the federal government under the Freedom of Information Act.

Florida State Road 64 leads west from Avon Park 19 miles (31 km) to Zolfo Springs.

Avon Park is located in a fringe viewing area; its television stations originate in distant cities.