By Brenda Eubanks Burnette
In the early 1900s, Florida Governor Napoleon Broward (1905–09) persuaded the Legislature to drain the Everglades and finance a canal system by selling off large blocks of land for $2 per acre. Once drained, the area housed rich fertile soil and, in 1906, millionaire R.P. Davie bought almost 28,000 acres.
By 1909, settlers arrived in response to his development, which he advertised as “The First Improved Town in the Everglades.” The pioneers settled in an area they initially called Zona, but the name was changed to Davie in 1916 to honor R.P. Davie.
These families, who worked the reclaimed black muck soil, prioritized education for their children. Initially, they held school sessions wherever they could, including a packinghouse along the canal and a room in the general store, with all students taught by a single teacher.
Davie settlers planted vegetable crops and orange groves. A brochure from the Old Davie School notes that “the quality of Davie’s fruit was considered among the best in the state. The area’s warmer weather and rare freezes, rich soil (thus lower production costs due to the need for less fertilizer) and ample water supply gave the area’s farmers an advantage over Central Florida growers.
“Davie had about 25 groves and packinghouses since 1909, and by the 1940s there were over 3,000 acres of high-producing citrus groves in Davie. At its peak in the late 1950s, there were over 5,000 acres of bearing groves in Davie, valued at $5 million.
“Davie farmers thought they should celebrate their prosperity. In 1940, a group of citrus farmers set up a picnic and fruit stands on the banks of the C-11 Canal, which runs along Davie’s southern border from the Everglades to the Atlantic Ocean. Residents of the town and from the surrounding area were invited to join in the festivities. Tourists drove to rural Davie on dirt roads or paddled up the C-11 to visit the town and join in what became the Orange Festival — a celebration of the flowering of the thousands of acres of orange trees in the area. Longtime Davie residents recall the fragrant odor of orange blossoms.
“As the orange industry peaked in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Davie Chamber of Commerce formalized the Orange Festival into an annual celebration to showcase citrus and agricultural products grown in Davie. During the three-day festival, hundreds of bushels of Davie oranges were given away. Also, hundreds of gallons of Davie orange juice were sold for 5 cents per glass.”
Today, the event is held annually in February and is called the Orange Blossom Festival, complete with a rodeo.
The Old Davie School became a museum that features a restored 1920s classroom and exhibits that highlight both the pioneers’ westward movement into the Everglades and the town of Davie itself. In 2017, a reconstructed citrus packinghouse was added, “which serves as a testament to South Florida’s agricultural past and the economic diversity of the area,” notes the brochure.
According to the brochure, only three major citrus businesses remain: Alex’s Flamingo Groves, Roth’s New River Groves and Spyke’s Grove. Sounds like a road trip to me!
Brenda Eubanks Burnette is executive director of the Florida Citrus Hall of Fame. Pieces of the Past is presented in partnership with Florida Southern College’s McKay Archives Center in Lakeland.
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