Lake Wales Heritage Inc.

03/06/2026

Come enjoy a full day of family fun as we celebrate the beautiful parks, trails and streetscapes that make Lake Wales unique.

The Olmsted Day Festival takes place downtown in the Market Plaza and on East Park Avenue. It will feature music, games, food trucks, educational presentations and speakers, scores of vendors, and a chance to learn and share the amazing history and origins of our special place.

Click here: https://lakewalesheritage.org/

04/12/2025

Thanks to all the wonderful sponsors who helped make our annual Olmsted Day Festival a rousing success! We tip our collective gardening hat to the City of Lake Wales, Bok Tower Gardens, the Lake Wales Arts Council, Southstate Bank, Applied Aquatics, Citizens Bank, the William B. and Nancy R. Thompson Charitable Trust, and Fay Diane Willey.

12/19/2024

Congratulations to Keith Van Hook, who won the drawing for the beautiful signed and framed photo by Clyde Butcher. Thanks to all who donated to the fundraising effort as well!

08/21/2024

Lake Wales Heritage has moved into our new offices and classroom space behind the Kirkland Gymnasium. We are seeking a conference table suitable for our board of directors meetings. If you have any suggestions please let us know by phoning 863-455-4925. Thanks!

07/13/2024

We are super-happy about our new agreement with the City of Lake Wales, which has granted us a lease of the lower portion of the city's Kirkland Gymnasium as a home for our efforts! The space will allow us to conduct meetings and host our Student Naturalist classes in our own space. It will also give us space to create a greenhouse nursery to raise the hundreds of trees and ornamentals we are using to achieve Frederick Law Olmsted's vision of "a City in a Garden."
Heritage directors and volunteers have been busy this month cleaning the space, which had been abused and left vacant and uncleaned for at least two years. Removing dirt and splashed paint from floors, cleaning ducts and ceilings, installing new air filters for the a/c unit, etc. has taken more than 50 hours of labor so far.
Next we will reinstall missing baseboards, paint, and furnish this great space.
If you would like to help our efforts in any way, please give us a call at 863-455-4925, or visit our website.

05/18/2024

Lake Wales Heritage is already planning for Olmsted Day 2024, March 29 next year! We'll have music, food, nature, and fun.
Plan to join us as a vendor or exhibitor! For more information or to reserve your space, please write to [email protected].

03/20/2024

12/20/2023

We've been busy, even in the rain! McLaughlin students have a surprise awaiting them when they return to school in January: a more beautiful school campus!

Lake Wales got a good bit greener last Saturday, not only because of welcome rains, but due to the efforts of a team of volunteers from Lake Wales Heritage who braved the damp to landscape the campus of McLaughlin Middle/High School. In a six-hour effort the group planted more than 40 trees on schoo...

10/23/2023

The "Big Green Network" included in Lake Wales Envisioned is connected to the "little green network" of trails, bike tracks, and tree-lined streets that will sustain Lake Wales as "A City in a Garden."

An Olmsted-inspired plan for Lake Wales, Florida, would revitalize the core, promote new growth in walkable neighborhoods, and preserve green space around the town.

09/02/2023

Do you love trees and nature? Do you appreciate history and culture? You might be the ideal candidate to fill a vacancy on our board of directors! Lake Wales Heritage is a 501 (C) 3 corporation. Our directors decide where and what we plant, organize our activities, and help educate, citizens about the inspiring history of our Olmsted landscapes. Our small group of Lake Wales area citizens makes a big impact, and that will only GROW as the months and years! If you would like to be a part of our leadership team, please reach out to us at [email protected].

08/24/2023

In an enormously frustrating event, the last surviving Hong Kong Orchid, almost 100 years old, planted on Tillman Avenue in 1930 as part of the Olmsted streetscaping project, was cut to the ground by a misguided city street crew this week. The action was blamed on a complaint from a resident, even though the flowering shrub was located on city property. Lake Wales Heritage is actively planting on city property with the expectation that the new trees will be protected by the city, not removed by them. We are very grateful for the community support we are receiving and will not let this seeming vandalism deter us from our efforts!
The tree is a sterile, non-invasive known as Bauhinia X blakeana. It flowers from late autumn through all the cooler months of the year.

08/06/2023

Lake Wales Heritage Board of Directors has voted to plant new trees to shade and beautify the campus of McLaughlin Middle/High School to replace those lost to ongoing construction projects. If you would like to support this effort, please contribute and specify the McLaughlin project on your donation. Thank you!

An aggressive facilities expansion to add a high school to the campus of McLaughlin School of Excellence has been devastating to the landscape at the school, but help is coming from unexpected directions, according to McLaughlin Principal Dr. Debra Wright-Hudson. A local non-profit, private citizens...