Sands of time: Building on Indiana Avenue has rich history

BY SALLY LANDIS BOHON

No building in DeLand is a more worthy site for local artists to display their work than 111 W. Indiana Ave., as indicated by your article Jan. 11-17. Described by Helen DeLand as the “Goodrich Building,” if one looks down as you step across the threshold of 109 W. Indiana Ave., you will see the name “Goodrich Block” on the large metal door plate still serving as a reminder of this building’s origin some 140 years ago.

Not only is this building the oldest one in Downtown DeLand, having survived the 1886 Great Fire, it was the first home of both Volusia County Bank, the oldest bank in Volusia County, and the law firm of Arthur Hamlin, DeLand’s first attorney.

In 1883, Mayor F.S. Goodrich opened a private bank in the back of his jewelry store. That same year, Arthur Hamlin opened his law firm in the eastern side of the building. Two years later, he was joined by Isaac Stewart, creating a genuine dynamic duo.

As for the bank, it was bought six years later in 1889 by John B. Stetson and J.B. Clough, who organized it into a stock company under the name of Volusia County Bank with Mr. Stetson as president.

Perhaps now forgotten in the passage of time, Mayor Fred Goodrich deserves a high place in DeLand’s history, being instrumental in moving the county seat from Enterprise to DeLand.

In 1888, after Henry DeLand donated the site on West Indiana Avenue, Goodrich, DeLand and John B. Stetson gave the commissioners a bond in the penal sum of $15,000, binding themselves to erect a courthouse free of cost to the county, provided the county seat be relocated to DeLand within the year.

Over its many years, the Goodrich Block has mustered through the sweep of DeLand’s history; if its walls could speak, it could tell tales.

My personal favorite tenant was upstairs in later years, when Lillian Wells’ School of Music held forth on the upper floor. Long before air conditioning and with windows flung open, Indiana Avenue was flooded with the musical scales from voice students belting forth. For those years, smiles crossed amused shoppers’ faces on Indiana from Allen’s Drugstore to Reeve & Howard’s Gift Shop.

Of all the buildings in DeLand selected to receive a historic plaque, 109-111 West Indiana Avenue was the most deserving.

Bill Dreggors and I examined every way we thought possible to place one there and could not find a suitable surface to hold it, as the front is nearly entirely taken up with windows. Perhaps a history of the building might be framed among the artworks that will be displayed there. That would be nice.

— Bohon’s grandfather, Cary D. Landis, who came from Indiana to DeLand to start a law school for Stetson University, was among the founders of the Landis Graham French law firm that still serves Volusia County today. Her father, Erskine Landis, also was a lawyer with the firm.