Ex Florida governor’s former home for sale

The onetime Lakeland, Fla., home of Lawton Chiles, a two-term governor and career politician, has been listed for $749,500, the Ledger newspaper reported.

Known as “Walkin’ Lawton” after spending three months walking the length of the Sunshine State, shaking hands along the way, the Florida Democrat was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1970.

Although Chiles sold the property in 1980, a decade before moving to Tallahassee to run for governor, some Lakeland residents still refer to it as the “Chiles House,” the Ledger reported.

Elected governor in 1990, Chiles died in the Governor’s Mansion in 1998, a few days shy of completing his second term in office, according to the paper.

The house, built in 1939, has been well preserved by its subsequent owners, the paper said. [Ledger] –Emily Schmall