Biohazard Cleanup Near Bob's Landing Babson Park, FL

Babson Park is an unincorporated census-designated place in Polk County, sitting on the eastern shore of Crooked Lake along Florida's Scenic Highway 17.

The community was first known as Cody Villa and then as Crooked Lake, until economist Roger Babson bought about 400 acres there in 1923 and the town was renamed Babson Park in his honor.

Babson Park's namesake, Roger Babson, was a famous economist who also founded Babson College in Massachusetts and ran for President of the United States in 1940 as the Prohibition Party candidate.

In 1927 Roger and Grace Babson founded Webber College in Babson Park — now Webber International University — as one of the nation's first business schools for women and the first college chartered under Florida's then-new charitable and educational laws.

Webber International University's 110-acre campus overlooks Crooked Lake and draws students from more than 48 countries.

The 2020 census counted 1,330 people in Babson Park, and its median age is only about 23 because so many of its residents are Webber students living on campus.

Roughly 9 in 10 homes in Babson Park are owner-occupied.

Nature lovers can explore Crooked Lake Prairie and the Ridge Audubon Society's Babson Park Nature Center at Webber, where trails wind through rare Lake Wales Ridge scrub habitat home to Florida scrub-jays.