DeLand is perched atop a section of high ground known as the DeLand Ridge. The ridge is bordered on the west by the St. Johns River and on the east by a Pamlico Terrace. It is bordered on the north and south respectively by DeLeon Springs and Orange City. It was originally called Orange Ridge because of all of the oranges grown there in the late 1800’s. Prior to the introduction of railroads into the interior of central Florida, in the last three decades of the 19th Century, access for goods and people was gained by steamboats which traveled the St. Johns River between Jacksonville and Sanford.

In 1876, after travelling by steamboat to Enterprise, Henry DeLand visited a small community known as Persimmon Hollow. He recognized its potential for settlement, started promoting development and purchased some landholdings there. He advanced the costs of streets, a school, churches and a public wharf. The residents agreed that the community should be called DeLand. Originally, passengers and freight destined for the DeLand area disembarked on the wharf at Beresford Landing. By 1880, a wharf had been built at Cabbage Bluff which became known as DeLand Landing. In that year, J. Y. Parce, the brother in law of Henry DeLand, obtained the contract to carry the mail from the steamboat landing at DeLand Landing into DeLand. The population of Volusia County in 1880 was 3,294.

On January 9, 1886, the big freeze of 1886 occurred and many citrus growers were ruined. Sometime that year D. B. Parce, the father of J. Y. Parce, fell through the railroad dock at DeLand Landing and sued the railroad for his injuries, whereupon he became the new owner of the railroad. The name of the railroad was then changed to the DeLand and St. Johns Railroad. Later in 1886 the decision was apparently made to reroute the railroad. This decision was probably made because 1886 was the year the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway line crossed the tracks of the DeLand and St. Johns Railroad at what came to be called DeLand Junction. On September 27, the Big Fire occurred, which burned down the business structures located in the 100 block of. Woodland Boulevard north of New York Avenue. During 1887, DeLand Academy, the outgrowth of the first school funded by Mr. DeLand became DeLand University.

By 1888 the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad appeared to have been leasing the DeLand and St Johns Railroad. The tracks between DeLand Landing and DeLand Junction were removed and a new line was constructed between DeLand Junction and DeLand. DeLand was now connected to the rest of the outside world through a steady and reliable form of transportation. A portion of the lands, through which the new line was routed, were owned by John Stetson. The new route followed the now existing. line from DeLand Junction to a point near the corner of Adele and Michigan Avenues then turned southeasterly past the water tower and crossed, diagonally, the St. Barnabas Church property, then turned easterly at Clara Avenue and followed the westerly extension of Ohio Avenue between Clara and Florida Avenues. It followed Ohio Avenue and curved south from Ohio Avenue to the intersection of Church and Amelia Avenues where the line split into four separate tracks.

The most easterly track served various lumber mills, fertilizer manufacturers and finally some warehouses owned by Mr. Dreka. The second track served the freight depot and the third track served the adjacent, second, passenger depot built in 1888. The depot stood in what is now part of Amelia Avenue at the northeast corner of Amelia and New York Avenues. The depot was opposite and east of the Parceland Hotel, built by J. Y. Parce about 1884. The most westerly track continued south to Voorhis Avenue where it serviced a large lumber and planning mill. The only good depiction of the depot and track layout that can be found is on the H. S. Wyllie Panoramic map of 1894 (see foldout in A Pictorial History of Volusia County 1870-1940). On April 3, 1888, DeLand became the county seat. In 1889, DeLand University became Stetson University, which Mr. Stetson had heavily endowed. During 1890 the DeLand and St. Johns Railroad was acquired by the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad. The population of Volusia County was 8,467.

By 1892 an Icehouse had been constructed on the lands of Mr. Stetson near the northwest corner of the intersection of Spring Garden Avenue and the railroad line. It was located on a short spur of track running to the north. Just to the south of that spur was the West DeLand Station. Sometime during 1893, the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad went bankrupt, probably due to the Financial Panic of 1893, and was reincorporated as the Jacksonville and St. Johns River Railroad and sold to the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway which was part of the Henry B. Plant system.

In the winter of 1894-1895 the Great Freeze occurred. This freeze was so devastating that fruit production fell, in Volusia County, from over

700,000 boxes per year to less than 200. Farmers, fertilizer companies, packing houses and banks were all bankrupted. The railroads suffered a substantial decline in freight revenue.

1896, John Stetson purchased and greatly enlarged the Parceland Hotel, which was renamed The College Arms Hotel, from J. Y. Parce. It was located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Amelia and New York Avenues across from the railroad depot, where the Volusia County Courthouse now stands. By 1897 the DeLand Power plant had been built on the lands of Mr. Stetson on the southwest corner of the intersection of Spring Garden Avenue and the railroad tracks. The West DeLand Station, which was located nearby, had disappeared and been replaced by Stetson Station located on the Southeast corner of that same intersection. Just to the east of that station Mr. Stetson constructed a fruit packing house, a fertilizer warehouse and a feed warehouse, all of which appear to have been connected to the water tower, also located on Mr. Stetson’s property.

Excerpt from, Engines of Growth: the Railroads in DeLand, Florida.

Written by W. E. Roddenberry.