Sometimes history announces itself with a towering monument, a roadside marker, or a museum filled with artifacts.
And sometimes it quietly hangs a little bronze plaque on the side of a building and waits for somebody nosy enough to stop and read it.
Hi. I’m somebody.
In May 2026, I was wandering through downtown DeLand, Florida, while participating in the West Volusia County Bingo Passport event. I’d first discovered the Bingo Passport during an earlier visit to Barberville Pioneer Settlement, and naturally, giving me a passport full of historic places to visit was a dangerous amount of encouragement.
I had been spending my Fridays visiting museums throughout the area, and on this particular day, I was walking toward the Museum of Art when a building caught my attention.
I didn’t know anything about it.
I didn’t even know its name.
It just looked old.
And old buildings have a terrible habit of making me curious.
As I got closer, I spotted a dedication plaque honoring a man named James H. Ford.
Ford?
My brain immediately went to automobiles.
Clearly, this wasn’t a car dealership or mechanic’s garage, so I snapped a few pictures and added a mental note to investigate later.
That little detour of curiosity led me into nearly 150 years of DeLand history.
Because the building I’d stopped to photograph wasn’t just another pretty piece of old architecture.
It was the historic Dreka Building.
And its story began almost as early as DeLand itself.
George Dreka Comes to DeLand
George Dreka arrived in DeLand in 1878, when the community itself was still young.
He established a department store selling the necessities of everyday life—essentially everything a growing Florida community might need.
The business prospered.
By 1885, Dreka’s operation had grown into an enormous four-story wooden building on the corner of Woodland Boulevard and New York Avenue. The building wasn’t limited to retail space, either. Its upper floors included hotel accommodations and offices.
Then came the fire.
In 1886, a devastating blaze swept through downtown DeLand, destroying much of the surrounding business district.
Remarkably, Dreka’s wooden building survived.
But surviving one fire didn’t mean it would survive the next.
And eventually, George Dreka decided to replace his successful building before fire—or time—made that decision for him.
Building for the Future
In 1909, Dreka demolished his own wooden building and invested approximately $75,000 in its replacement.
That was an enormous investment for the time.
And he wasn’t simply rebuilding what had already existed.
He was building something meant to last.
The new three-story Dreka Building was constructed using reinforced concrete, making it far more resistant to the devastating fires that regularly threatened wooden commercial districts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Its Mission Revival design gave it the distinctive appearance that originally caught my attention more than a century later.
But the impressive features weren’t limited to the exterior.
Inside, the building included an elevator and even a pneumatic tube system used to move sales receipts from counters to the business office.
Imagine how futuristic that must have seemed in 1909.
This wasn’t simply George Dreka replacing an old department store.
He was making a statement about the future of his business—and the future of DeLand.
More than a century later, the building is still standing.
I’d say he made his point.
Nearly 50 Years of J.C. Penney
George Dreka died in 1936, but the building bearing his name continued evolving with downtown DeLand.
In 1938, J.C. Penney moved into the Dreka Building.
For the next 48 years, generations of local families passed through these doors.
School clothes.
Sunday clothes.
Christmas presents.
Everyday necessities.
The kind of ordinary purchases that don’t seem historically significant while they’re happening but eventually become part of a community’s collective memory.
The building witnessed the Great Depression, World War II, the postwar boom and decades of change throughout DeLand.
But American shopping habits were changing too.
Downtown department stores gradually lost customers to suburban shopping centers and malls.
In 1986, J.C. Penney closed its downtown DeLand location.
After nearly half a century, another chapter of the Dreka Building’s story had ended.
The building remained.
And eventually, another name would become connected to it.
The name on the plaque that started this entire rabbit hole.
What makes this discovery even more interesting is that I had already spent part of the day exploring DeLand’s history at the DeLand House Museum. I had left one historic building behind without realizing another story was waiting for me just a short walk away.
Who Was James H. Ford?
In 2004, SouthTrust Bank purchased the historic Dreka Building as part of an investment in downtown DeLand.
James H. “Jimmy” Ford was a respected local banking leader who had spent decades building relationships within the community and supporting the economic development of West Volusia County.
On September 24, 2004, the building was formally dedicated in his honor.
And that’s where my confusion began.
Because standing outside the building more than two decades later, I could see the plaque dedicating the James H. Ford Building…
but I couldn’t find his name anywhere else.
There weren’t giant letters across the facade.
There wasn’t a prominent sign announcing the James H. Ford Building.
Just that plaque.
Initially, I wondered whether something had been left unfinished.
But as I dug further into the story, I realized I was looking at it the wrong way.
The building hadn’t stopped being the Dreka Building.
The dedication to James H. Ford simply added another chapter to a story that had already been unfolding for more than a century.
And the plaque itself was the tribute.
A Memorial Hidden in Plain Sight
There’s something I really love about that.
Historic buildings accumulate stories.
One generation doesn’t necessarily replace another.
George Dreka’s story is still here.
So are the memories of the thousands of people who shopped at J.C. Penney.
And now James H. Ford’s story has become another layer.
His tribute doesn’t need to dominate the building’s facade to matter.
Instead, it’s recorded quietly on a bronze plaque mounted to the wall.
Thousands of people can walk past it without ever stopping.
I almost did.
And had I not noticed it, I probably would have admired the architecture, snapped a picture and continued toward the museum without ever knowing what I was looking at.
That little plaque changed everything.
The Dreka Building Today
More than a century after George Dreka constructed his reinforced-concrete department store, the building continues to serve downtown DeLand.
Today, it is also known as New York Plaza.
The businesses occupying its rooms have changed many times over the years. Retail stores, restaurants and professional offices have replaced the department-store counters of George Dreka’s era.
But the building itself remains.
It survived the decline of downtown department stores.
It survived changing ownership.
It survived changing tastes.
And rather than becoming an abandoned relic of DeLand’s past, it adapted.
That’s one of my favorite kinds of historic preservation.
Not every historic building needs to become a museum.
Sometimes the best way to preserve a place is to allow it to continue living.
Why Places Like This Matter
When we talk about forgotten history, it’s easy to picture ruins hidden beneath vines, abandoned towns slowly disappearing into forests, or cemeteries where the names on the stones have nearly faded away.
But history can be forgotten without disappearing.
Sometimes the building is still standing.
People still work there.
People eat lunch there.
Cars still pass it every day.
Thousands of people may walk past it without realizing they’re moving alongside more than a century of local history.
That’s what makes places like the Dreka Building so fascinating to me.
I didn’t travel to DeLand specifically looking for it.
I didn’t have it marked on an itinerary.
I was walking somewhere else entirely.
In fact, I was on my way to the Museum of Art – DeLand, another stop on my Bingo Passport adventure. The Dreka Building wasn’t supposed to be a destination that day at all. It became one simply because I stopped long enough to notice it.
Something about the architecture caught my eye.
Then a little bronze plaque made me curious.
And suddenly, an ordinary walk through downtown DeLand became a journey stretching back to 1878.
That’s why I photograph things that catch my attention when I’m exploring.
Sometimes I know exactly what I’m looking at.
Sometimes I don’t.
But I’ve learned to trust that little voice that says:
There’s a story here.
Planning Your Visit
The historic Dreka Building is located in downtown DeLand, Florida, at the intersection of Woodland Boulevard and New York Avenue.
Because the building remains in active commercial use, this isn’t an abandoned location or traditional historic attraction. It’s part of the living downtown surrounding it.
If you’re exploring DeLand’s historic district, take a moment to appreciate the building’s Mission Revival architecture.
But don’t just look up.
Look around the walls, too.
Find the James H. Ford dedication plaque.
Then imagine the generations of people who have passed this same corner—from customers entering George Dreka’s department store more than a century ago to the people walking downtown today.
Sometimes the smallest details tell the longest stories.
Every Place Has a Story
I started this particular adventure knowing absolutely nothing about the Dreka Building.
All I knew was that it looked old…
and I wanted to know why James H. Ford’s name was on that plaque.
That’s one of the things I love most about exploring.
You don’t always have to know what you’re looking for.
Sometimes you just have to notice.
History doesn’t always hide behind locked gates or deep in forgotten forests.
Sometimes it’s waiting patiently on the wall of a building we’ve walked past a hundred times.
And every once in a while, somebody stops long enough to ask:
What’s the story here?
That’s when the forgotten stories start talking again.
Have you ever discovered the history of a place simply because something caught your eye?
Tell me about it in the comments. Those unexpected discoveries are often my favorite ones.
And if you enjoy exploring forgotten Florida, historic cemeteries, ghost towns, battlefields, old buildings and the stories hiding in plain sight, join me here at Travel Made Personal.
Because every place has a story…
and every story deserves to be remembered.
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