Welcome to the Farewell to Finder’s Fest geo-art, brought to you by the Forest Minions! This series celebrates weird and unusual things throughout the Sunshine State. Please do not go to the posted locations. Rather, solve the challenging quiz found at the bottom of each page, for the final location. For the letterbox caches, please leave the stamp in the cache. They are not trade items. For the discerning traveler, we’ve included the GPS coordinates for these bizarre locations, when we were able to establish them.
Old Citrus Packing House – Location 29.1385, -81.3592
In the 1870s, this area from Deland along the St. Johns River to Palatka was where Florida’s citrus industry really got its start. Early pioneer orange growers were making good money shipping their fruit to the Northern states. Then devastating back-to-back freezes of 1895-96 wiped out the growers. However, a few groves and packing houses north of Orlando did hang-on until late in the game, including one off of Hwy-17 in DeLeon Springs, probably the last complete intact citrus packinghouse in this part of the state.
The citrus packing house, found at the aforementioned coordinates, was a complex of about ten buildings, where oranges were washed, sorted, and packed for shipment. Following a fire, the owner rebuilt using metal buildings, which, along with a few of the original wooden structures can still be seen from the highway, the packing house resembles a ghost town. There is a water tower, some old gas pumps, several small buildings and the big warehouse size packing house, which is still stacked with wooden crates.
Here is the super duper, way challenging, really hard trivia question, which, if solved properly, will lead you to the final coordinates:
Question: According to archeologists, bandages in ancient times were made of what?
A: Plastic = N29° 28.322' W81° 50.695'
B: Carbon fibre = N29° 28.312' W81° 50.695'
C: Spider webs = N29° 28.302' W81° 50.695'