Athens Theater

Florida after the War Between the States soon found itself in that particular condition ever since unchanged whereby those already here would organize an economy by enticing others to follow. While some worked at reconstructing the structures of civil society after Civil War, others would explore and promote their vision of the endless good life.

As early as 1869, Ledyard Bill in his book A Winter in Florida glimpsed in today’s West Volusia, “bays and mirrored waters, whose surface and shores seem likely never to have waked to other echoes than those of the wild birds that inhabit them." For the “sporting men" whom he encouraged to this region, he declared “Enterprise is the paradise."

For Harriet Beecher Stowe downstream on the St. Johns, the mission was to draw Northerners who would outvote the residue of an agrarian slave-owning society and re-shape Florida by a free work ethic.

For poet Sidney Lanier, it was to publicize northeast Florida for transportation interests that would draw settlers to buy land and ship their produce to markets by rail.

All helped slowly turn the St. Johns River portion of Florida from an exotic attraction to a place of settlements, though soon surpassed by centers of coastal commerce. Even as railroads replaced riverboats for transporting freight and spurred development elsewhere, West Volusia remained agricultural. Citrus and timbering prospered the towns but left them slow changing. They evolved their distinct qualities.

Stetson University turned DeLand into an educational center that soon wrested the county seat from Enterprise. Cassadaga became a spiritualist center, Orange City a hub of citrus production, Seville and Pierson newly Mexican-influenced centers of fern growing.

Major fire in DeLand in 1886 slowed the town but led to its re-building, creating the heritage masonry look that prevails today. While the main road steadily widened to four lanes south through Orange City and DeBary, Woodland Boulevard through the heart of DeLand retained its traditional two-lane character, the result of university influence that has left downtown DeLand one of the most beautiful county seats in the state.

Flanking Woodland, the university campus claims more than a century of architectural landmarks from DeLand Hall, erected in 1884 -- Florida’s oldest building in continuous use for higher education -- to the all brick Elizabeth Hall and modern duPont-Ball Library.

The city itself boasts historical buildings, including the SouthTrust Bank Building first built of pine in 1909 and once home to the city’s most famous department store; the Athens Theater, in 1921 built in an orange grove and now under restoration; the restored historic county courthouse from 1929; and 119 N. Woodland, site of the saloon where the great fire began in smoldering sawdust.

Horse ranching has continued in rural areas and small electronics plants have opened. Tourism has become less flamboyant.

Regional springs that flowed into the St. Johns have become state parks, first Blue Spring in Orange City (the spring visited by John and William Bartram in 1766), then DeLeon Springs in its namesake town. A third state park opened at Hontoon Island, which forms in the St. Johns River. Blue Spring became popular for viewing manatees that gather in its warm winter waters, DeLeon Spring for swimming, and Hontoon Island for its hiking trails.

Opposite Hontoon Island, the bend in the river became home to two fleets of houseboats.

In 1964, the river marsh north of Glenwood where John James Audubon visited in 1832 became the 21,500-acre Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge and facilitated birding as a regional attraction.

These natural pursuits together with regional agriculture have made West Volusia a stronghold of conservation sentiment. Volusia County, which in 1986 helped lead Florida in local self-taxing referendums for the acquisition of critical lands, has consistently found strong support for these policies in its western districts.

By 2001, the regional tourism body began working to protect West Volusia’s character as a way to ensure its ongoing appeal to visitors. First moves organized the River of Lakes Heritage Corridor and seek to have the main road that parallels the river and an historic route that continues east through Enterprise, Osteen and Samsula designated as a Florida Scenic Highway.

Plans were developed to stabilize agriculture against encroaching homebuilding. A first Volusia County Wildflower Festival was organized for the spring of 2007, and Florida’s first adult bicycle safety training and touring program was launched by the Florida Bicycle Association in the town of Lake Helen.

A county program that invests $1 million a year in trail development has seen the start of a 30-mile Spring-to-Spring Trail that will link DeBary Hall with Gemini Springs County Park, Lake Monroe Park, Blue Spring and DeLeon Springs. Additional trails are underway that will connect Lake Helen with New Smyrna Beach and Englewood on the coast, and Enterprise with Mims and Titusville, also on the coast.

The good West Volusia life continues.