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Dec 22, 2023

Vibrant crate labels tell stories of citrus heydays

Florida State Archives Boxes of fruit shipped from Florida from about 1930-40

Florida State Archives

Boxes of fruit shipped from Florida from about 1930-40 featured colorful labels such as this one from the Eastlake Packing Company.

Joy Wallace Dickinson

This marker outside the historic Lake County Courthouse in Tavares is part of the Lake County Historical Society's Citrus Label Tour (visitlakefl.com/citrus-label-tour), which includes markers from Umatilla to Clermont.

Joy Wallace Dickinson

A poster at Disney Springs pays homage to Central Florida's citrus history with the fictional Springs Brand, in the style of historical citrus labels.

Florida State Archives

Boxes of fruit shipped from Florida from about 1930-40, including this one from R.D. Keene in Winter Garden, included vibrant labels.

Florida State Archives

Boxes of fruit shipped from Florida bore colorful labels that provide insight not only into the folk art of the citrus industry but also into mid-20th-century marketing strategies. These Central Florida labels date from about 1930-1940, according to Florida State Archives.

For decades, Orange County lived up to its name as a major producer of citrus, despite significant ups and downs, until the killer freezes of the 1980s. On cool winter nights during our citrus heydays, folks in the west Orange city of Winter Garden could hear the rumbling of 300-pound blocks of ice rolling down into the railroad cars filled with golden crops for the trip north, veteran citrus grower Jerry Chicone Jr. once recalled.

Pasted on the wooden crates that carried the citrus, vividly printed paper labels touted the various brands of fruit. Once seen as worthless advertising, these labels are now considered a form of Florida folk art, highly collectible and reproduced as wall art and greeting cards. They "not only provide insight into the folk art of the citrus industry, but also illustrate marketing symbols and strategies at work in the 20th-century United States," as a Florida State Archives online exhibit notes.

The turnaround in appreciation of the labels began in the 1970s. That's when Chicone began collecting them, eventually amassing thousands and discussing his collection in two books written with co-author Brenda E. Burnette: "Florida Citrus Crate Labels: An Illustrated History" (1996) and "Florida's First Billboards: Florida Citrus Crate Labels" (2014). In 2014 and 2015, he donated more than 3,000 labels to the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida in a searchable collection available online (ufdc.ufl.edu/collections/citruslabel).

From ads to art

Like much commercial art and design, citrus labels were designed to convey information quickly, and people didn't realize their value until many had been burned or thrown out.

The first labels for crates of citrus and other fruit and vegetables probably were produced in California late in the 19th century after the lithographic printing process became widely available, according to Burnette and Chicone's 1996 book. Before that, the names of packinghouses and shippers were stenciled on the ends of wooden shipping crates.

These crates weren't the same as the recycled field boxes used to harvest fruit in the groves and bring it to packinghouses. The railed wooden or wire-bound boxes that carried the fruit north by train and ship from west Orange County and other top citrus areas were designed to get it to a buyer — not only by keeping it cool and undamaged but also by showing it off with enticing advertising.

When the crates arrived in major produce auction centers, primarily in New York and in Chicago, they were stacked high with the label ends displayed to the buyers who would come by as early as 2 a.m. to inspect and bid on the fruit.

The buyers were all men who operated in a rough-and-tumble world, and some fruit packers aimed to catch the gents’ eyes with labels featuring images that at the time might have been considered a bit risqué but look pretty tame today. One of the most head-turning labels, for the Nudist brand from Dundee, featured a painting of an Art Deco-ish woman who would be at home today on the walls of most any art museum.

Varied images reflect Florida

In fact, the labels find themselves in many museums today because of their artistic as well as historical appeal. They feature varied images that include animals, birds and flora native to Florida, including glorious paintings of the fruit itself, such as those used on labels for the Alpine Brand of the Eastlake Packing Company.

The labels showed off not only the brand name but also the grade of the fruit. Often the color of the label represented the grade — blue for grade A and red for grade B, for example.

Some labels even featured the homes and family members of citrus growers. The Fairvilla brand, part of the Dr. Phillips citrus empire in the early years of the 20th century, featured a picture of the Phillips family home in Orlando on Lake Lucerne (now an event venue).

Most labels date from the 1930s to the early 1950s, according to experts. World War II greatly cut the need for the labels because much of Florida's citrus crop was shipped directly to the military, and by the mid-1950s, printed cardboard boxes had replaced wooden crates. The now-prized labels survive in the collections of Florida history fans and museums.

Citrus labels often appear among the offerings of dealers at postcard shows, including the upcoming DeLand Vintage Paper and Postcard Expo, Jan. 6-7, 2023, at the Volusia County Fairgrounds, 3100 E. New York Ave., DeLand. Hours are Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cost: $5 (good for both days). For more information: Mary Martin at [email protected] or 410-939-0999.

Joy Wallace Dickinson can be reached at [email protected], FindingJoyinFlorida.com, or by good old-fashioned letter to Florida Flashback, c/o Dickinson, P.O. Box 1942, Orlando, FL 32802.

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