𝟏𝟗𝟐𝟕 In mid-April, during her first visit to DeLand in 20 years, HELEN PARCE DELAND took a nostalgic stroll up North Woodland Boulevard. “I could not believe my eyes,” she wrote. Her father and the city’s founder, Henry Addison DeLand, had envisioned a street “cut from the forest,” a mile long and 60 feet wide, with a row of trees in the middle as well as on each side—water oaks, wild oranges and magnolias. Plantings were encouraged by a city council decision to remit property taxes after two years for trees planted in certain stated areas. According to Miss DeLand, O.J Hill put out those in West DeLand for John B. Stetson; W.W. Parce made Printery Park in the depression near E.O. Painter Printing Co.; and students and teachers at Stetson University lined East Minnesota with trees on Arbor Day. Although center plantings on Woodland were removed in 1915 and high water damaged many other trees in 1925, Miss DeLand saw …” A Japanese picture of grey, brown and green, varied with red, pink, white and a bit of purple.” Many early houses had not changed, she noted, but a giant wisteria, grown into the porch of the J.F. Allen home across from Chaudoin Hall, marked time’s passage. 

SOURCE: The Story of DeLand and Lake Helen Florida, by Helen Parce DeLand, pps. 20-23. The photo of North Woodland Boulevard in the 1920s is from the WVHS archives.