A large crowd of people gathered to witness the arrival of the first passenger train in DeLand, Florida on July 28, 1884. The narrow gauge train consisted of a steam locomotive, passenger coach, three boxcars and two flat cars. The Parce Land Hotel can be seen in the distance. This depot was located near the intersection of East New York and Amelia Avenue.

In 1884 Steamboats on the St. Johns River once brought people and goods to central Florida, traveling between Jacksonville and Sanford. To reach interior settlements in West Volusia, something else was needed. According to researcher W.E. Roddenberry, DeLand area passengers and freight first disembarked at Beresford Landing. By 1880, there was a wharf at Cabbage Bluff, later known as DeLand Landing. J. Y. Parce, Henry DeLand’s brother-in-law, and proprietor of the Parce Land Hotel, had many adventures carrying the mail from the steamboat landing into DeLand. Henry Flagler’s railroads came later. First, to carry timber and turpentine from wooded areas to sawmills, narrow (less than four feet wide) gauge rail lines were pushed through heavy undergrowth and often marshy land. Originally used for mining, they could carry smaller cars and make tighter turns. 

During 1881, Roddenberry reported, Lake Helen timber and mill owner E. W. Bond and several associates formed the ORANGE RIDGE, DELAND AND ATLANTIC RAILROAD. This narrow-gauge line ran from DeLand Landing, along Old New York Avenue to its intersection with what is now State Road 44, and then easterly to DeLand’s first depot, located on the south side of New York Avenue between Clara and Delaware Avenues. 

Excerpt from,

ENGINES OF GROWTH: THE RAILROADS IN DELAND,FLORIDA.

Written by, W. E. Roddenberry.