A Walk Back in Time
I don’t have to travel far to picture Enchanted Springs’ Main Street. I simply need to walk downtown. DeLand’s historic Woodland Boulevard feels less like a business district and more like a carefully preserved stage set.
But its charm came at a terrible cost. When DeLand was new, the boulevard wasn’t much more than a collection of ramshackle structures surrounded by orange groves. One unlucky breeze could blow it all away.
In 1886, it did. A few sparks flew, and a devastating fire tore through the heart of town. The business district was destroyed.
In fact, if you stand at the intersection of Woodland Boulevard and New York Avenue, you might even smell smoke from a distant fire—the inferno that tore through this intersection on September 27, 1886.
People were already on edge. A hurricane was making landfall near Apalachicola, almost 300 miles to the west. The weather system brought gusty winds, heavy rains, and high humidity across Florida. Those who could sleep were probably tossing fitfully—when suddenly, all hell broke loose.
At 2 a.m., everyone in town woke to a living nightmare. The business district was on fire. Red and orange flames illuminated the night sky, casting a strange artificial daylight through the darkness. Columns of white smoke rose toward the stars, while constellations of burning embers spiraled in every direction, setting new fires wherever they landed. Dogs barked, and the horses in the livery stables whinnied and bucked in a panicked frenzy. “Fire!” someone shouted. “Fire! Fire!”
In the streets, more people spread the alarm—yelling, blowing whistles, and shooting guns. As stable hands led horses to safety, every man, woman, and child who could hold a bucket of water joined the brigade. Volunteer firefighters wheeled in two 30-gallon chemical engines, which were like oversized fire extinguishers on wheels. They were immediately overwhelmed.
City leaders made the difficult decision to let the central business district burn. Most of the buildings in a two-block area were already engulfed. They had been built of dried pine from surrounding forests, and they went up like kindling. As those buildings crumbled and fell, everyone focused on structures that hadn’t yet caught fire, draping them in wet blankets and dousing embers where they landed.
In just two hours, twenty-two buildings burned to the ground and thirty-three businesses were lost. Miraculously, no one died.
In its place, a new street rose from the ashes—and today, it still feels like a street suspended between past and present.