Vintage 1940s Indian Deer Crate Label 🦌 — Indian River Fruit, Deerfield Groves Company, Wabasso Florida

Who Packed Indian Deer Brand Fruit? 🦌 Indian Deer Brand Indian River Fruit, Deerfield Groves Company, Wabasso, Florida

Size: 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" ~ Unused.

Simply stunning! This is a vintage 1940s Indian Deer citrus crate label, distributed by the Deerfield Groves Company of Wabasso, Florida. Two gold shield-shaped medallions sit on a bright green field, one with the proud profile of a chief in a feathered headdress and a gold earring, the other with the head of a buck with a full rack of antlers, and a red banner cuts diagonally between them reading INDIAN DEER. Little palm trees stand along the horizon, and the deep blue panel below carries INDIAN RIVER FRUIT in big white letters.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• INDIAN DEER, REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.
• INDIAN RIVER FRUIT
• DISTRIBUTED BY DEERFIELD GROVES COMPANY, WABASSO, FLA.
• PRODUCE OF U. S. A.

Indian River Fruit was the name every grower on Florida's Indian River lagoon wanted on his box, the region's own calling card for its citrus, and the label says it louder than the brand. There's a printer's line in tiny type at the lower right, and the end of it reads CO. LITHO. S. F. CALIF., so this one came off a lithographer's press in San Francisco. I get a kick out of that, Florida fruit dressed in a label printed clear across the country, but it was common enough: San Francisco shops were among the big suppliers of Florida's citrus labels.

🌴 Deerfield Groves

The Deerfield Groves Company goes back to E. P. Porcher of Cocoa, one of its founders, and in 1917 A. B. Michael merged his own citrus groves at Wabasso into Deerfield Groves and became its vice president and general manager. Porcher's packing house made a little citrus history of its own: the Ahlberg electric branding machine, invented by Frank Ahlberg of California to stamp brand names right on the fruit, was first used commercially there, on oranges shipped under the Deerfield brand. The company registered DEERFIELD GROVES as a trademark for fresh citrus in 1928, with a deer's head in the design, so the deer on this label was part of the family look. Deerfield Groves was still at it on Orchid Island near Vero Beach in 1990, when it registered another mark.

🦩 Wabasso, Ossabaw Backward

Wabasso has one of the best little name stories in Florida. The town's name comes from Ossabaw Island in Georgia, just spelled backward. Its post office opened in 1898, and it sits in Indian River County on US 1 between Sebastian and Winter Beach, right in the heart of Indian River citrus country.

🏡 Display

Crate Labels are a reminder of a bygone era but the amazing lithography process is unparalleled even to this day in my opinion. Museums and Art Institutes have galleries dedicated to them and more and more collectors are seeking these out to preserve their history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries then they will be very difficult to acquire.

Imagine this amazing vintage advertising hanging as home decor in any room of your home instead of a museum! It's a natural for a hunting lodge or a Florida kitchen, and a perfect gift for anybody from Vero Beach, Sebastian or the Treasure Coast.