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Peeling Back The Layers Of History

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By PAUL CATALA

Tribune correspondent

Published: October 15, 2008

TEMPLE TERRACE - A few longtime residents remember picking and cutting into this city's juicy namesake, the temple orange, back when the fruit was as common as sunshine.

Others recall, as youngsters, darting among remnants of a 5,000-acre temple orange grove that surrounded what now is Temple Terrace.

But no one today, it seems, can find the original trees to determine whether the sweetness they bore still exists. A recent, extensive search for even one original temple orange tree proved fruitless.

A few leafy descendants of the original trees remain, most of them planted within the last 40 years. When the fruit ripens, residents enjoy what Temple Terraces Estates' advertisements once touted as, "An orange that is to other oranges what the diamond is to semiprecious stones."

In the early 1920s, homeowners in the upscale new subdivision eagerly became part of Florida's citrus craze, tending and harvesting their own succulent temple oranges - glossy, smooth and easily peeled with fingertips. But a hard freeze later that decade killed the trees, and developers removed them to prepare the land for subdivisions.

Named for William Chase Temple, the temple orange is a hybrid of the sweet orange and tangerine. It is about four inches in circumference, consistently juicy and reddish-brown.

In 1894, M.E. Gillette of Buckeye Nurseries in Tampa saw the unusual orange while visiting Jamaica to buy bud wood to replace freeze-damaged citrus stock, according to the Temple Terrace Preservation Society. He returned to Florida with the hybrid bud wood and marketed it under the name "temple orange."

Gillette secured exclusive rights to grow and distribute trees grown from the original bud wood.

Developers of Temple Terraces Estates encouraged new homeowners to plant the trees. The Tampa Tribune, in an article published Jan. 23, 1921, proclaimed: "Riches of nature combined with man's resources make paradise of Temple Terrace."

To entice home buyers to the new community, Buckeye Nurseries in 1921 and 1922 planted a 5,000-acre grove of temple orange trees and offered 5-acre parcels to new residents. At the time, the citrus grove was considered the largest in the world.

The venture was successful until the freeze killed most of the grove. A few trees survived the severe cold and remained - some in people's yards - into the 1970s.

Most of the original 5,000-acre grove was bisected by what now is Busch Boulevard, and the initial plan was to plant trees as far west as Nebraska Avenue.

About 60 acres were planted in the Temple Crest neighborhood, bounded by 30th Street and Temple Terrace's city limits to the west and east, respectively; and by Busch Boulevard and the Hillsborough River to the north and south.

Terry Neal, president of the Temple Crest Civic Association, recently took a trip around his neighborhood in an attempt to find a surviving original temple grove tree. Driving along North 47th Street, he spotted a citrus tree resembling a temple in front of a residential garage.

Stopping at the home, Neal met Joe Moreira, 42, who grew up in the area and has lived in the house for two years. Moreira said he eats fruit from the tree when it ripens in winter.

"We get a lot of fruit off of it every year," he said, adding he understood the tree was planted sometime after the house was built in the 1950s.

"They're really sweet, and they remind me of tangelos."

Lester "Mac" McClung is a fourth-generation citrus grower whose grandfather homesteaded land in Pinellas County in 1867. A week after Neal spied the tree in Moreira's yard, McClung, who has lived in Temple Terrace for 52 years, took a look at it.

Sure enough, he said, it is a temple orange, although he confirmed the tree did not appear to be an original.

"Around here is the first place temple oranges were grown on a large scale," said McClung, who owned about 160 acres of citrus in Hillsborough and Pasco counties." "It was the most expensive citrus you could grow back then."

Farther east, along Bannockburn Avenue near the 12th hole of Temple Terrace Golf Course, Mary Lou Cureton has one of the largest temple orange trees in the city. She and her late husband, Tom, planted the tree shortly after moving into their house in 1953.

"It's a beautiful tree when it's in bloom," Cureton said. "I give a lot of them fruit away."

Small quantities of temple oranges are grown elsewhere in Hillsborough County.

Chris Oswalt, an extension agent with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences in Bartow, said there were about 35 acres of temples growing in Hillsborough County in 2006.

"It would not be impossible or unheard of that a few trees would remain from that original Buckeye Nurseries introduction," he said. "The hard part, as you know, would be locating these trees."

Neal said he won't abandon his quest. At a September meeting of the Temple Crest Civic Association, at least one resident offered clues to where he might find an original temple orange tree.

While his search continues, the handful of Temple Terrace and Temple Crest residents who own descendant trees will continue savoring their harvest.

"It's funny," Cureton said. "This is Temple Terrace, but you can hardly find a temple tree anymore."

Reporter Joyce McKenzie contributed to this report. Reporter Joyce McKenzie contributed to this report.

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