Episode 17: Orange Blossom Festival

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The following is the transcription of an episode of “Old School: A Podcast from the Old Davie School Historical Museum.” 

Hello! This is Kim, Education Director here at the Old Davie School and welcome to Old School! Usually around this time of year, Davie is getting ready for the Orange Blossom Festival downtown, but unfortunately for safety this year, it is going virtual! Along with the Davie Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department, we will be celebrating the Orange Blossom Festival through the ages! We’ll be going back through our archive and remembering our longest running event throughout the month of February. So today, we’ll begin with a little bit of history and how the festival began!

Festival Beginnings

The Orange Blossom Festival has been held almost every year since 1941.

But there were often picnics and events in the growing agricultural community of Davie before then. Beginning in 1931, the Davie Methodist church sponsored a Rose Festival for a few years each March, growing from a small display of locally grown roses to an annual event with a barbeque that brought hundreds of visitors to Davie. According to one newspaper in 1935—“Festivities lasted well into the evening as the crowd showed no inclination to go home.”

But 1941 marks the first year for the Orange Festival (not called the Orange Blossom yet, we’ll get to that a little later). It was organized and sponsored by the Davie Chamber of Commerce. A pamphlet from the event said the purpose of the festival is to not only “advertise the resources and products of the Davie section, but in addition, with its surplus funds to create a Park and Community center for the residents of Davie.” Held on a Friday and Saturday, March 28 & 29, a newspaper announcing the event describes the festival:

“A feature of both days will be a tractor race. Tractor agencies of South Florida will compete with their equipment in this novel contest.

An All-Davie Rodeo will be featured Saturday afternoon. All cattle and horses used, as well as riders, bulldoggers and ropers are from Davie.

One of the largest exhibits of oranges and other citrus fruits ever seen in South Florida will be on display. Davie has several thousand acres of citrus groves to draw from for this gigantic exhibit.

In the vegetable exhibit will be more than 65 varieties of produce, all grown in the Davie area.

Davie’s claim to be the rose capital of Broward County will be backed by a huge display of roses as well as other cut flowers.

There will be a complete exhibit of wild grasses that grow in this area, which are of extreme value to the owners of beef cattle being raised in the Davie section.”

Other attractions included were: an orange race, horseshoe pitching contest, husband and wife calling contests, sack race, catching the greased pig, pie eating contest, three-legged race and more with prizes for the winners. There was even a contest for “Grandmother with the most Grandchildren” and that actually went to Mrs. M.E. Franklin with 35!

The competition for the Orange Blossom Queen was open to all Davie girls. The honor of presiding over the event also came with a $15 prize! The Festival opened on Friday, March 28, 1941 with the crowning of Miss Frances Munson as the first Queen. With “a platform decorated with oranges and orange blossoms,” she was escorted by her five attendants, who were Mary Catherine Anderson, Mary Elizabeth Troy, Marie Salvino, Lyda Mae Aunapu and Helen Stirling. One article in the Hollywood Herald newspaper says the town welcomed Navy pilots from the Opa-Locka Naval Air Base, who “finally gave in to the attractions and landed in a near-by pasture in order to join the fun.”

A barbeque dinner during the event included ribs cooked over open barbeque pits, fresh corn dodger rolls, cold slaw and coffee for only 50 cents! And the Chamber of Commerce in appreciation of their visitors, “presented all women with a spray of orange blossoms.”

The event was a success and with the funding raised, the Chamber of Commerce built the community building. Local men donated the labor and built the new building on free evenings and weekends, and it would be used for meetings, parties, dances, and that concrete block building is actually the interior of Town Hall today.

The Second Festival and the Second World War

But 1941 changed the United States forever with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December and our entrance into World War II.

In Davie, the second annual Orange Festival went ahead as planned on March 14 & 15, 1942, with special tributes to the patriotic efforts during wartime. Secretary Harry Earle of the Chamber of Commerce wrote an address in the Festival pamphlet, titled, “The Spirit of Davie—and of America.”

“The opening of the Second Annual Davie Orange Festival finds our Nation, the United States of America, involved in a total war, a war we must win for the sake of Liberty and Humanity throughout the entire world…This Festival stands as a symbol of what community spirit, team work, and the “will to do” can accomplish… Let Davie, then set the example for our neighboring cities, to the State of Florida, indeed to the entire Nation of what unity and the “will to do” can accomplish.”

Lyda Mae Aunapu was crowned the second queen of the festival, through an election—votes were one penny and whoever raised the most received the crown! One newspaper report says “Thousands of sprays of orange blossoms will be entwined about the coronation dais. The event will be filmed by moviemen now in this area and will be shown throughout the nation.” I WANT TO FIND THAT. Who are these ‘moviemen?’ I’ll be on the lookout and give you an update when I can.

The rodeo for this year was actually cancelled and replaced with a horse show that was chaired by James Bright. He is known for being a part of establishing the Hialeah Race Track and for bringing and raising the first thoroughbred horses to the state at this ranch in Davie in the 1930s.

The town came together to celebrate the event along with 8,000 attendees from all over Florida. More than 12,000 cups of orange juice was served over the weekend event. The agricultural exhibits would highlight the produce that would contribute to the war effort and the festival took a three-year hiatus during wartime, returning successfully in 1946 and for nearly every year since.

Changes through the Years

Despite the hurricanes and flood that devastated the town in October 1947, the festival carried on by March and showed the resilience of Davie. By the 1960s, attendees recall bushels of oranges given away, gallons of freshly squeezed juice, and bouquets of the budding orange blossoms which marked a fruitful year—and likely contributed to the festival’s name change.

It remained the Orange Festival until 1979 when it changed to the Orange Blossom Festival, and I can’t pin down an exact reason why—it had been mistakenly called the Orange Blossom Festival on and off in the newspapers since 1941, so maybe they just liked it and it stuck. The rodeo eventually became the mainstage of the event as the community grew and changed. In 1996, the Orange Blossom Festival combined with the Florida WestFair that brought national rodeo to the Davie arena. It celebrated the Wild West with saloon shootouts and Monster Truck rallies.

But our story here in Davie is unique to South Florida and eventually the town brought it back to the hometown festival as we now know it in 2001, celebrating the area’s citrus and agricultural history with a Farmer’s Market and Green Fair, and activities for the family. Here at the Old Davie School our pioneers usually cook out over the fire, churn butter and squeeze fresh orange juice. Each year the parade travels down Davie Road with floats decorated by local organizations and Orange Drive is lined with booths, live animals, and entertainers, all celebrating the rich cultural and agricultural heritage of Davie.

But Who’s Counting?

One last little sticking point I have is the number of years its been held. If you do the math–this year would be the 84^th since last year was the 83^rd, but if it started in 1941 and missed at least those three years during WWII, and if we count the Westfair as a part of the evolution of the festival–that would still only put it at 77 years. I tried to track it down exactly what happened there, and newspapers throughout the years are not always reliable, some saying it started in 1937/1938– maybe they were counting the Rose Festival as a precursor? But there’s even years where on one page in the newspaper it says it’s the 53^rd and the next page says 54^th. So at some point the count went all over the place, and while it doesn’t actually make a difference, it’s just funny to me. There have definitely been at least 84 celebrations in Davie’s history worth celebrating!

The Future

The Orange Blossom Festival is a special way to remind us of where our town came from and the dedication in those early years to build the character of Davie today. I think Orange Blossom last year was our last event before lockdown with Covid-19, and while this year is most definitely different, we will still celebrate how we can and stay safe, so maybe next year we’ll all be together at the Festival again!

Thank you so much for listening! If you have any Orange Blossom memories to share this month, email me at education @olddavieschool.org and we can share them on the podcast here! Follow our social media for pictures and videos of the festival through the years! Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other! Bye!