BY SALLY LANDIS BOHON

It’s a rare conversation these days that at some point doesn’t turn to the lament over the rapid disappearance of our trees going under a developer’s bulldozer. Trees: the need for — or the clearing of — have been the subject for concern in this neck of the woods for nearly 150 years.

In one sense, it was trees that created the settlement called Persimmon Hollow. Newcomers to this community may not know they are sitting on top of what was once known as “The Orange Ridge,” so-called because that lofty strip of well-drained land, roughly from DeLeon Springs to Orange City, was uniquely suited to the growing of citrus, mainly orange trees.

Spurring the migration of settlers to this area was the 1862 Homestead Act that provided any adult citizen who had not taken up arms against the government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land, provided they lived on it or “improved” their plot. Most folk hitched up that covered wagon and headed West, but some came to Florida.

Here near the St. Johns River, they found a ridge of land thick with tall yellow pine. They cut down those pines to build their cabins and clear the land to plant their groves.

At first, it was just a dozen or so settlers, but once Henry DeLand arrived with his dream of creating a town and school and the ability to attract commerce, things changed.

The news of profits, real and potential, created “Orange Fever,” that attracted entrepreneurs seeking riches as citrus growers. Only eight years later, an 1884 artist’s map of the town shows orange groves as far as the eye can see.

Where the Putnam Hotel stood on West New York Avenue was a hotel called The DeLand Grove House, surrounded by — as you can guess — orange groves. As was St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, smack in the middle of Capt. John Rich’s groves.

But an orange tree is not a shade tree. And as the town grew, its sandy, unshaded streets became a concern. Since running a town back then wasn’t very expensive (the only person drawing a salary was the sheriff at $50 a month), around 1880 the town council adopted a plan to inspire homeowners to plant shade trees.

The ordinance allowed homeowners to take 50 cents off their property taxes for every shade tree they planted. This was a good deal, because oak trees cost very little and labor was really cheap. People started planting oak trees like crazy every 15 to 25 feet or so up and down the streets in front of their homes.

It took the town council maybe two years to rescind this tax-reduction plan because, frankly, the town was going broke!

But in the meantime, DeLand had its streets lined with oak saplings that grew and grew and grew.

There are still a few vestiges left around town of this tree-planting frenzy to enjoy: Howry Avenue is one.

As it happened, stripping the land of all those pine trees to plant orange groves took an ironic twist; the timber from those pines also built the stores that lined the Boulevard like ducks in a row.

There simply is no better wood for kindling a fire than a nice fat pine and thus, on Sept. 27, 1886, it took only two hours for the city of DeLand to be reduced to ashes around 2 a.m., when, presumably, a cigar sparked into flame on the sawdust floor of the Wilcox Saloon.

Imagine waking up today to find the blocks from New York to Rich avenues nearly empty of buildings. Well, that is what happened.

But that is also why DeLand now has such a distinctively charming Downtown; it was rebuilt over the next 20 years in the highly decorative Late Victorian designs of the 19th century, in fireproof red brick.

Now there is a reason the main street through town is named Woodland Boulevard. It was originally designed to have three rows of trees: one down the middle and one bordering each side. But it didn’t take too long before that middle row had to come out. Folk used them mainly to hitch their horses or wagons. and once cars began to appear, those trees were a total nuisance.

The merchants wanted them gone. As with all civic issues, the town was highly divided: those who wanted to keep the trees against those who wanted them gone. The latter won, and that was that. When I was a youngster, some of those trees were still there in the middle of the road from Plymouth Avenue north to the Daytona Highway. (International Speedway was a thing of the future.)

A member of the Mercer family, who lived near that comer, told me that they would hear at least one car a night plow into those trees as it drove north out of town.

We obviously love our trees. One can argue that the loveliest approach to town is through the Stetson University campus, which has replanted the live oaks that create a canopy across North Boulevard. And didn’t the city recently pay a local dentist $12,500 to ensure that a historic live oak wouldn’t be cut down in order to expand its bike trail?

But these are the exceptions to the clear-cutting now reducing the surrounding forests to sand. Are we losing sight of the obvious? As we lose our woods, we lose our wildlife. As we humans gain housing, the bears, deer, foxes, quail and the rest lose theirs.

Trails West stands as an example of an HOA that preserved the oaks, pines and magnolias that grace its streets. The foxes, raccoons, bears and owls swoop and prowl there by night, as the tree frogs sing. By day, the woodpeckers peck, the hawks hunt, and the cardinals and squirrels chatter and peck. The woods are essential to their well-being and to ours.

— 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.