OSCEOLA PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT

Osceola Park was one of the first residential subdivisions added to the town of Vero Beach, and contains the city’s largest concentration of early 20th century buildings. In 1915 and 1917, the Indian River Farms Company, who had platted the original town of Vero in 1913, hired chief engineer William H. Kimball to develop plans for the subdivisions of Little Acre Farms and Osceola Park Homesites. Located west of Vero, the Little Acre Farms subdivision consisted of one-acre lots that provided enough land for a home, a vegetable garden, and some livestock. In contrast, Osceola Park was laid out following a traditional grid pattern of streets, some using American Indian names such as Osceola, Tom Tiger, and Tallahassee. Osceola Park was developed for Vero’s first residents, and the neighborhood became a fashionable residential district where some of the town’s most prominent citizens lived. The district developed between 1915 and 1958, and includes houses that represent the architectural tastes and changes in construction technology over four decades. The approximately forty-acre Osceola Park Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.