Antique 1920s - 1940s Ruby Brand Citrus Fruit Crate Label 🍊 Tavares Florida, Pretty Girl Portrait & Navy Graphic Art

Who Was Ruby on the Citrus Crate Label? 🍊 Meet Ruby — and the Co-op Behind Her

Size: 6 3/4" x 3"

Say hello to Ruby. She looks out from the left of this label with a warm, easy smile, softly waved dark hair and a simple string of pearls, framed inside a glowing chartreuse circle. Beside her, "RUBY" blazes across deep midnight-blue in tall white letters trimmed in red and pale blue. But the most interesting thing about her is the line printed just below: "Lake Region Packing Assn, Tavares, Florida." Ruby was the friendly face of one of the oldest and most important citrus cooperatives in the whole state.

🏢 The Lake Region Packing Association, Tavares

The Lake Region Packing Association was founded in 1909 on the shore of Lake Dora in Tavares, Florida — one of the very first citrus cooperatives in the state. A cooperative like this pooled the fruit of many local growers, grading, wrapping, packing and shipping it together under a shared set of brands, so that a small grower could reach distant markets with the strength of a large one behind him. Its position on Lake Dora, with railroad access, put it right at the meeting point of Lake County's groves and the lines that carried their fruit north.

For much of the twentieth century the association was steered by one remarkable manager, Jennings Bryan "Babe" Prevatt, hired in 1926. He served roughly twenty years as secretary-manager and twenty-six as president-manager, guiding the co-op through the Great Depression and decades of change. Under his long stewardship the Lake Region Packing Association became the dominant packer in Lake County: by 1971 it shipped well over 1.7 million cartons of fruit — about half again as many as the county's next-largest shipper — and it was the leading packer of the then-new Orlando tangelo. The packing house ran for nearly a hundred years, closing in 2005, and the association itself closed in 2022. In other words, the crisp little label in these photographs represents a Florida institution that outlived almost everything around it.

The "Ruby" brand follows the classic "pretty girl" formula of the citrus trade, where a friendly, wholesome portrait gave a brand instant warmth. Whatever inspired the name, the fruit behind that smile came from one of Florida's oldest and largest citrus cooperatives, in the heart of the Lake County citrus belt.

💕 The Charm of the Pretty-Girl Label

Why a smiling young woman on a box of oranges? Because warmth sold. A wholesale buyer scanning a wall of near-identical citrus crates responded to a human face the way we always do — with a flicker of attention and goodwill — and growers knew it. The pretty-girl label became a whole tradition in American produce advertising, and the best of them, like this one, are small triumphs of friendly design: a healthy, happy portrait that quietly promised the fruit inside was every bit as fresh and good. Ruby's chartreuse halo against the deep navy is a genuinely sophisticated color choice, and the bold outlined lettering gives the label a confident, poster-like snap.

📦 Genuinely Old, Never Used

A word on why a label this old still looks freshly printed: it was never used. Florida citrus shipped in nailed wooden crates that each wanted a pasted paper label, so packing houses and associations ordered them by the thousand. When pre-printed cardboard cartons took over — printing the brand straight onto the box — the paper labels became obsolete, and leftover stacks were set aside and forgotten. This Ruby label is one of those survivors: never pasted to a crate, its back a clean blank, its front as deep and vivid as the day the press ran.

🖼️ How to Live With It

A label as friendly as this one, from so storied a co-op, earns a spot on a wall:

• 🍊 Frame it as-is — the deep navy and warm portrait look lovely in a simple frame with a white mat.
• 💕 Play up the pretty-girl charm and pair it with other portrait labels for a warm, human display.
• 🍊 Build a Florida citrus wall, grouping Ruby with other orange and grapefruit labels for a sunny corner.
• 🏡 Give it to someone named Ruby, or to a Florida family with Lake County roots — a warm, specific little gift.
• 🎁 Use it as an affordable, genuinely-vintage present — real 1940s Americana, light to send and easy to frame.

🎁 Who This Is For

Ruby will mean the most to a handful of people. The crate-label collector values a bright, clean, association-attributed Florida citrus label — and the pretty-girl subject is a favorite category in its own right. The lover of mid-century design reads the chartreuse-on-navy palette and bold lettering as accomplished commercial art. The Floridian — anyone with a grove, a grandparent or a childhood in the Lake Region — finds a specific piece of home in the word "Tavares." And of course there is anyone named Ruby, for whom a genuine vintage label bearing the name is irresistible.

❓ Questions Worth Answering

Who packed the fruit?

The Lake Region Packing Association of Tavares, Florida — a citrus cooperative founded in 1909 on Lake Dora, and by the 1970s the dominant packer in Lake County. It is named right on the label.

Who was Ruby?

"Ruby" is the brand name, illustrated by a friendly portrait in the classic "pretty girl" style.

Is it original or a reproduction?

An original vintage lithographed label, not a reprint. The completely blank reverse and paper character are consistent with genuine unused new-old-stock.

How old is it?

No year is printed on the label.

What condition is it in?

Unused, with a clean blank back and a rich, well-preserved front.

🌴 What a Cooperative Meant

It is worth understanding what stood behind that smile. A packing "association" like Lake Region was a growers' cooperative — many small growers pooling their fruit to be graded, packed, shipped and marketed together under shared brands, so that no one grower stood alone against the market. That model, and the leadership of a manager like "Babe" Prevatt, is exactly how a Tavares co-op founded in 1909 grew into the dominant packer in all of Lake County and rode out the freezes and depressions that closed so many others. Under Prevatt it grew from the county's third-largest packer in 1938 into its outright leader by 1971, shipping over 1.7 million cartons in a season and leading the market for the new Orlando tangelo. When you frame this Ruby label you are not only keeping a charming portrait; you are keeping the trade dress of one of Florida's oldest and most successful citrus cooperatives.

That is the quiet depth beneath the pretty face: not just a charming portrait, but the working signature of a Lake Dora institution that outlasted the Depression, the freezes and nearly a century of change in the Florida citrus trade.

✨ Why It Matters

It is a small thing, a paper label — and yet look how much history is in it. Ruby was the smiling face of the Lake Region Packing Association, a Tavares cooperative founded on the shore of Lake Dora in 1909, steered for half a century by "Babe" Prevatt and grown into the largest citrus packer in Lake County. She was made to be liked, and she still is. Frame her, gift her, or simply keep her where that 1940s smile can catch you on the way past — and you are keeping a warm, bright, genuine piece of one of Florida's oldest and greatest citrus co-ops.

📋 What Is Printed On This Label

• PRODUCE OF U. S. A.
• RUBY
• BRAND
• CITRUS FRUIT
• LAKE REGION PACKING ASSN.
• Tavares, Florida

Packer, not printer. The firm named on the label is the house that grew, packed or shipped the fruit. It did not make the label — commercial lithographers did that, and where one signed the sheet the imprint is quoted above.

The sheet says CITRUS FRUIT, and no more. It names no specific fruit — not orange, not grapefruit, not tangerine. A small yellow BRAND sits at the right terminal of RUBY, and PRODUCE OF U. S. A. runs across the top left.