America 250<\/a>
\n
Bok Tower Gardens helped put Polk County on the map when it opened in the 1920s<\/p>\nA new historical marker has been placed for Bok Tower at the I-4 rest stop in Polk County. FDOT has placed these signs for historical sites across the state for America 250, with at least one in each county.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great for people to get out and see the country for our 250th anniversary,\u201d said David Price, president of Bok Tower Gardens. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly a historic location. It\u2019s a great place for a road trip.\u201d<\/p>\n
Price said the gardens have a big place in Florida\u2019s history, as they helped put Polk County on the map when they were planted in the 1920s.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it really affected Polk County. Polk County was the center of tourism in the 20s all the way up until the 50s,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
The gardens were first planted in 1922 by author Edward Bok. Later, President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the Singing Tower in 1929. The tower now has daily performances of its carillon bells that visitors can listen to as they tour the gardens.<\/p>\n
The gardens are now about 10 times their original size, full of flowers like azaleas and camelias. Future plans call for even more preservation and expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for the future, we\u2019ll be here for generations to come. As past generations have experienced us,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
View additional information on visiting\u00a0FDOT\u2019s Road Trip Florida.<\/a>\u00a0FDOT is also offering guidebooks at rest stops and welcome centers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"POLK COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 Bok Tower Gardens is now part of Road Trip Florida, the Florida Department of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[52302,2173,28,7444,115,139,1911,135,137,136,7227,729,835],"class_list":["post-207683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-america-250","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-florida","tag-getting-there","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-polk-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tim-wronka","tag-traffic","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}