Lakeland

Lakeland is a city in Polk County, central Florida, on the interstate between Tampa and Orlando. The name refers to the many small lakes inside the city, which are ringed with parks and walking paths.

Abraham Munn, a businessman from Kentucky, bought land around the lakes in the early 1880s, and the town was laid out beside the new railway, which made it a shipping point for oranges. Incorporated in 1885, the town grew as a center for the citrus groves and phosphate mines of the county. In the 1930s and 1940s Frank Lloyd Wright designed a group of buildings for Florida Southern College, with covered walkways linking chapels, a library and classrooms. In 1957 Queen Elizabeth II sent a pair of royal swans to the city, and their descendants still live on Lake Morton.

Publix, the supermarket company owned by its employees, has its head office in Lakeland. Saddle Creek Logistics, also based in the city, runs warehouses and trucking for retailers across the Southeast. Oranges from the groves of Polk County are processed into juice in plants around the city.

The Detroit Tigers hold their spring training at Joker Marchant Stadium, a ballpark in the north of the city, a tradition that began in the 1930s. Lake Mirror, in the downtown, has a classical promenade with steps and a loggia from the 1920s. The Polk Museum of Art, near the lake, shows American and pre-Columbian art. Hollis Garden, beside Lake Mirror, is a formal garden of fountains and flower beds.