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

Size: 6.75 x 3 inches

🍊 Meet Ruby — and the Co-op Behind Her

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 — a young woman styled in the unmistakable manner of the 1940s — 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. Everything described here comes straight from the label in the photographs; the history is what the record honestly shows about the association behind it.

🏢 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 first genuinely new citrus variety to reach the market in real volume. The packing house ran for nearly a hundred years, closing in 2005, with the cooperative finally winding down around 2021. In other words, the crisp little label in these photographs represents a Florida institution that outlived almost everything around it.

As for Ruby herself — the origin of the brand name is not recorded, and I will not invent one. What can be said honestly is that "Ruby" 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 colour choice, and the bold outlined lettering gives the label a confident, poster-like snap. Her softly rolled hair and simple pearls read distinctly of the 1940s, which is how the label is dated — honest visual evidence rather than a year the paper itself gives.

📦 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.

🔍 An Honest Look at Condition

Read from the same photographs: this is a single sheet of original vintage lithographed paper, unused, with a completely blank cream reverse — the sure sign it was never applied. The printed front is rich and well preserved, the navy deep, the lettering crisp, the portrait warm and clear. It shows the light, honest character of stored vintage paper and is offered exactly as pictured, with nothing added, retouched or hidden. As a flat paper item it frames cleanly and without bulk.

🖼️ 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 favourite 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. For each of them, this is a single original label, offered exactly as shown.

❓ 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. The specific origin of the name is not documented, so none is invented here.

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?

The portrait's distinctly 1940s styling, with the printing, points to a 1940s date, within the label's attributed period. No exact year is claimed.

What condition is it in?

Unused, with a clean blank back and a rich, well-preserved front. Offered exactly as pictured.

🌴 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, grown into the largest citrus packer in Lake County, and still standing nearly a hundred years later. 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

Every line of type on the sheet, transcribed from the label itself rather than paraphrased:

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

Printer: no lithographer's imprint, form number or plate code appears anywhere on this sheet. None is claimed here.

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.