This 30-year period was momentous in the changes it brought. DeLand continued to grow. The downtown business district prospered and the population swelled. Telephone service and electricity became more accessible to the households in the area.

There were challenges, as well, for the fledgling city. DeLand experienced devastating freezes in 1894 and 1895, and it was 10 years before those whose livelihoods depended on citrus-growing were comfortable again.

John B. Stetson died in 1906 and Henry DeLand died in 1908. Woodland Boulevard was bricked in 1917. Part of the road to New Smyrna Beach was bricked in 1919, after World War I. From 1900 to 1920, DeLand experienced slow but steady growth.

The County Jail was built on West New York Avenue, across from the Volusia County Courthouse and just west of what is today the Conrad Place. When a person was sentenced to hang, the hanging was carried out in that county. In Volusia County, the hanging place was at the rear of the jail, near what is now Café da Vinci, a popular Downtown DeLand gathering spot.

A new Post Office was built in 1917 on the northeast corner of Indiana and Florida avenues. World War I ended in 1918, with six local men killed. Officers had been trained for service in WWI in Stetson University's Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

Downtown DeLand was changing with new construction and, by 1920, there was only one wooden building left. Everything area residents needed - grocers, furniture and clothing stores, repair shops, druggists, lawyers, automobile dealers and government offices - was located downtown.

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