Munnville, Rome City, and Redbug were just a few of the suggested names for the small Central Florida community that would come to be known as Lakeland. Not long after its founding, other descriptive monikers-"Lovely City of Lakes" and "Highest, Healthiest, Busiest"-would be applied. Recently ranked as the tenth "Best Place to Live" of medium-sized cities in the South, Lakeland today offers an entrancing combination of contrasting elements that all work well together. Fields of strawberries and rolling hills covered with citrus groves surround a growing city comprised of a mixture of structures, both new and old, modern and beautifully preserved. Commercial entities join with cultural organizations in mutually beneficial relationships to produce a quality of life that many other cities only hope to attain. Lakeland may well be as it was advertised in 1905-"Florida's Best Town."
Through photographs drawn largely from local archives, authors Lynn M. Homan and Thomas Reilly lead readers on a journey through the Lakeland of yesterday and today. Offering the stories of the buildings and the builders, visitors and residents at work and at play, good times and bad, they show the town that is uniquely Lakeland.