October 8, 2026
Lake Agnes, Polk City: The Shore Where Polk City Started
A Boston developer stopped to rest on the shore of Lake Agnes in the summer of 1922, and the town of Polk City grew from where he sat
Isaac Van Horn was traveling through Polk County in the summer of 1922 when he stopped at Lake Agnes. He was a developer out of Boston, moving through the middle of the state. He did not go on. Polk City traces its origins to that stop, and the streets of the town that grew up around him run a few blocks north of the water.
The lake was on the map before he got there. Rand-McNally's Florida atlas of 1904 lists Lake Agnes, which puts the name and the water at least eighteen years ahead of Van Horn's arrival.
The lake covers about 379 acres, and the Polk County Water Atlas lists it slightly smaller, at 377. Little Lake Agnes, 111 acres of its own, sits off its side. The Water Atlas files Lake Agnes under Auburndale rather than Polk City, and the two towns sit a short drive apart in northwest Polk County, so the county's databases and the town's own founding story do not put the water in the same municipality. The public boat ramp, at 333 Bridges Road, reads Polk City.
Largemouth is what the tournament boats come for. Bluegill and bowfin share the water with them, and locally the bowfin goes by mudfish or dogfish; the ruddy bowfin name tags the reddish coloring some of them carry. The bowfin comes from a lineage far older than the largemouth, and it can breathe air when the water runs low on oxygen.
In June 2011, Wade and Jimmy Young won the Sunday Open Series open tournament on Lake Agnes with a five-fish weight of 12 pounds, 13 ounces, the top weight of the day's field.
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