The Great Freeze is the back-to-back freezes of 1894–1895 in Florida, where the brutally cold weather destroyed much of the citrus crop. It may also have been responsible for wiping out natural stands of Royal Palm trees from the lower St. Johns River Valley northeast of Orlando. Entire communities, such as Earnestville, faded after the citrus crops and trees were lost to the two unusually cold weather patterns of the winter season.
Weather records
Orlando reached an all-time record low of on December 29, 1894. This cold front continued to West Palm Beach, where the all-time record low of is two degrees cooler than their next lowest reading. In the second cold wave, West Palm Beach recorded a monthly record low of on February 9, 1895, the third-coldest year on record,, 1905 was second.
Events
There were two freezes in Florida during this catastrophic season, the first in December 1894 and the second in February 1895. The first did not actually kill many mature trees, but did set the stage for new growth during the warm month that followed. So, when the second, harder freeze came a few months later, the effects were even more devastating. All varieties of fruit froze on the trees, and bark split from top to bottom. These effects were felt as far south as the Manatee River, below Tampa. By 1895, Florida's abundant citrus groves had extended into northern Florida, and the state was producing as much as six million boxes of fruit per year. After the Great Freeze, however, production plummeted to just 100,000 boxes and did not break the one million box mark again until 1901. As a result, land values also dropped in the citrus growing areas from $1,000 per acre to as little as $10 per acre. Many compared the economic impact of the Great Freeze on Florida to the effects of the Great Fire on the city of Chicago. In the wake of the Great Freeze, many growers simply abandoned their Florida groves to return to the North. A few went to search for frost-free locations in the Caribbean such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. Others relocated to California, using a seedless variety of grapefruit discovered by C.M. Marsh near Lakeland. He was able to harvest 10,000 buds before the Great Freeze that were later propagated by west coast growers with great success, although the overall drier climatic conditions in California produce, according to some, less flavorful citrus. The freeze also prompted Julia Tuttle, founder of Miami, persuade railroad magnateHenry Flagler to expand his rail line, the Florida East Coast Railway, southward to the area, but he initially declined. Tuttle wrote to him, asking him to visit the area and to see it for himself. Flagler sent James E. Ingraham to investigate and he returned with a favorable report and a box of orange blossoms to show that the area had escaped the frost. Flagler followed up with his own visit and concluded at the end of his first day that the area was ripe for expansion. He made the decision to extend his railroad to Miami and build a resort hotel. Since that time, Florida's citrus industry has rebounded greatly, and now is second in the world only to Brazil in the production of oranges.
