Polk County

Polk County is the name of twelve counties in the United States, all except two named after president of the United States James Knox Polk:

Polk County, Oregon

Polk County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 census, the population was 75,403. The county seat is Dallas. The county is named for James Knox Polk, the 11th president of the United States.

Polk County is part of the Salem, OR Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area. It is located in the Willamette Valley.

History

The Oregon Provisional Legislature created Polk County from Yamhill District on December 22, 1845, granting to it the entire southwestern portion of present day Oregon to the California border. County boundaries were periodically changed to reflect the creation of Benton and Lincoln counties. Many other counties were subsequently carved out of these as settlement spread towards the south, leaving Polk County many counties away from its former border with California.

The first county seat was a settlement on the north side of Rickreall Creek named Cynthian (also known as Cynthia Ann). In 1852 city officials renamed Cynthian to Dallas after Vice President George M. Dallas, vice president (1845-1849) to James Polk. During the 1880s and 1890s, there were a series of unsuccessful efforts to move the county seat to nearby Independence.

Polk County, Florida

Polk County is a county located in the State of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 602,095. Its county seat is Bartow, and its largest city is Lakeland.

Polk County comprises the Lakeland-Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area.

In 2010, the center of population of Florida was located in Polk County, near the city of Lake Wales.

Polk County is home to one public university, one state college, and four private universities. One Fortune 500 company—Publix Super Markets (106 in 2012)—has headquarters in the county.

History

The first people to call Polk County home arrived close to 12,000 years ago during the last ice age as the first paleo-indians following big game southward arrived on the peninsula of Florida. By this time, the peninsula had gone through several expansions and contractions due to changing sea level; at times the peninsula was much wider than it is today, while at other times it was almost entirely submerged with only a few small islands exposed. These first paleo-indians, nomadic hunter/gatherers who did not establish any permanent settlements, eventually gave way to the "archaic people", the ancestors of the Indians who came in contact with the Spaniards when they arrived on the peninsula. These Indians thrived on the peninsula and it is estimated that there were over 250,000 in 1492 when Columbus set sail for the New World. As was common elsewhere, contact with Europeans had a devastating effect on the Indians. Smallpox, measles, and other diseases, to which the Indians had no immunity, caused widespread epidemic and death. Those who had not succumbed to diseases such as these were often either killed or enslaved as Spanish explorers and settlers arrived. Within a few hundred years, nearly the entire pre-columbian population of Polk County had been wiped out. The remnants of these Indians joined with refugee Creek Indians from Georgia and The Carolinas to form the Seminole Indian Tribe.