The Strawn Historic Citrus Packing House District (also known as the Bob White Historic Citrus Packing House District) is a United States historic site situated at 5707 Lake Winona Road in DeLeon Springs, Florida, Volusia County.
The packing house is in a condition of disrepair and has been closed since 1983. The 20-acre property is located off US Highway 17 between Lake Winona Road and Ridgewood Avenue. On the southwest, it is bounded by the CSX railroad line.
It is made out of a packing house with a characteristic sawtooth roof. A barn, blacksmith shop, machinery house, steam and dynamo building, and eight other structures are located behind this edifice.
The extension of the railway system into southern Florida in the late 1800s opened up the area to new industries and extended the chances for many possible enterprises.
Florida was marketed as a tropical paradise where the “environment treated all diseases and the soil created prosperity with little effort.”
As settlers developed “orange fever,” the expanding citrus business aided in the sale of land. They expected to make a lot of money selling to the northern states.
In 1882, Theodore Strawn, an Illinois native, arrived in West Volusia County and established an orange packaging business.
The old packing house burned down in 1921, and a metal building with a characteristic sawtooth roof was built to replace it. The walls were made of stamped copper alloy steel plates and were fireproof.
Florida was generating over 5 million cartons of fruit before being slammed with severe back-to-back winters. After a severe frost on Christmas 1983, the packing house was closed down.
According to John Strawn, the grandson of the site’s founder, Theodore Strawn, the orange trees were destroyed down to the stump that year.
Temperatures fell throughout the state in 1894 and 1895, forcing many producers to watch as their crops withered.
The complex, together with a sawmill and several more Strawn agricultural structures about a mile distant, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
The site has been severely trashed by thieves throughout the years. The machine shop was destroyed by fire in 2008. A fire in 2010 destroyed a 40-by-50-foot outbuilding and damaged two others.
Despite widespread interest in purchasing the land and rehabilitating the remaining structures, no agreements have been reached.
Even in its deteriorated state, the site is historically valuable because it reflects the early growth of Florida’s citrus industry.
Since 2007, it has been listed on The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of Florida’s Eleven Most Endangered Historic Sites. The Volusia County Historic Preservation Board has categorized it as endangered.