Here's Elsie the Cow, my favorite advertising character.
This is a phosphate digger at the phosphate mine just outside Bartow. That dark opening with the light over it is a doorway, regular people-sized.
This here's the best thing ever. This is the best version of the Official Seal of Imperial Polk County I could find on the Internet. Yes, that's what it says, Imperial Polk County. The pictures going around the seal represent all the great things about Polk County. Starting at the top and going clockwise, they are:
- The Dome of the Historic Courthouse (and now, Geneological Museum) in Bartow.
- A Water Skier, symbolizing tourism, Central Florida's current main industry.
- Bok Tower, at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales. The Tower is built on the highest point in penninsular Florida.
- A Cow, symbolizing the noble cattle industry, which is still going strong in Polk County.
- A Phosphate Digger, symbolizing the phosphate mining industry, one of Central Florida's first thriving industries.
- A Fish, symbolizing the many lakes and rivers in the area. The Peace River begins just north of Bartow.
- A Church; your guess is as good as mine.
- An Orange. The citrus industry was Polk County's first and greatest industry. Lakeland was once the citrus capital of the nation.
Those are basically all of Polk County's industries, tourism, citrus, cattle, and phosphate. The two landmarks (not counting the completely unidentifiable church) are not, however, all the landmarks we have. At Spook Hill, in Lake Wales, you can put your car in neutral and it appears to roll uphill. The largest one-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world is in Lakeland, comprising the Florida Southern College Campus.
So what about "Imperial?" The one "explanation" I came across is a story about W. V. Wev, some local politician who wanted to build a system of nine-foot-wide roads in Polk County in 1915, a $1.5 million dollar project. But the kicker was he wanted there to be an arch over the entrance of each road into Polk County which said, "Now entering Imperial Polk County." Nice story, but it doesn't explain the "Imperial" part, I know.