RAILROADS

In 1880 the Orange Ridge, DeLand and Atlantic Railroad was incorporated. The next year E. W. Bond acquired control of the stock of the company and built the road from DeLand to DeLand Landing. "What a gala day it was when on Monday, the twenty-eighth of July 1884, an excursion was given and this road formally opened, for traffic and travel. The road was a narrow gage and the rolling stock consisted of one engine, two flats, three box cars and one passenger coach. Many people in the county came to look at the 'big train' for they had never before seen any other means of travel than the two wheeled cart and the steamboat." In 1886 a new company was organized under the name of the DeLand and St. Johns River Railroad. They operated the road until the later part of 1887, when the tracks between DeLand Junction and the river were taken up. The Junction was where the road crossed the Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Key West Railroad constructed from Jacksonville to Sanford from 1882 to 1886. In 1890 the line from the Junction to DeLand, four and one third miles long was conveyed to this company, which in 1902 became part of the Atlantic Coast Line. It must not be thought that the people of DeLand were unaware of the business advantages of having the city on the main line of the railroad. A strenuous effort was made to induce the company to come that way. They decided that the additional cost of construction would be too great. However, DeLand has been growing westward and it is only a matter of a few years when houses will line New York Avenue all the way to the Station. The mountain did not come to Mahomet, but Mahomet is going to the mountain.

Excerpt from:

The Story of DeLand and Lake Helen, Written by Helen Parce DeLand.