108,000 pounds of bread was made here daily until 1969 when it was abandoned


Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida
Date added: November 11, 2023 Categories: Florida Industrial

In June of 1926, the company purchased four lots in the Daytona Gardens Subdivision. In late July, Tipton, C.J. Bramlett, the Southern Baking Company's general manager, and J. Edwin Hopkins, an engineer and architect from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, visited the site and announced that construction would be forthcoming and the bakery would begin production in November. Hopkins' design for the plant called for the erection of a large two-story edifice with a Mediterranean-Revival style design that featured elaborate terra-cotta ornament. It was to be constructed with a brick and steel I-beam structural system. The bake oven was to measure eighty-two feet in length and be capable of producing 108,000 pounds of bread daily.

Bids for the construction of the plant were let in late July. The New York City-based Equity Construction Company, which specialized in baking plant construction, was awarded the contract. The contract for the erection of a special cylindrical hollow clay tile chimney to service the oven was given to the M.W. Kellogg Company, a chimney building firm from New York. Tipton announced in early August that 65 percent of the estimated $600,000 to be expended on the project would be spent to employ local laborers or purchase materials from Daytona Beach area suppliers. That decision was welcomed by local civic associations, which were in the midst of a campaign to keep local construction workers employed as the rate of development in the city slowed due to the deflating Florida land bubble. The factory would also provide jobs for locals who would be employed to make the bread, and it was hoped that its success would attract other industries to the city.

Work on the Seybold Baking Company Factory was begun in late August 1926, and was completed early in 1927, just as Daytona Beach, along with the rest of the state, was beginning to experience the collapse of the speculative land boom. As a result of the worsening economic conditions in Florida and other areas of the South, the Southern Baking Company was unable to meet the massive financial obligations it had amassed during the expansion of its facilities in the mid-1920s. In 1928, after deferring dividend payments to stockholders and earning marginal profits, the Southern Baking Company was acquired by the Columbia Baking Company, which maintained offices in Atlanta, Georgia, and Wilmington, Delaware. Organized in 1928, the Columbia Baking Company operated eighteen bakeries, twelve throughout the South, came with the Southern Baking Company acquisition.

The Columbia Baking Company experienced severe economic losses during the early years of the Great Depression. In 1930 the company lost a total of $135,295 and the following year more than $240,000. In an effort to consolidate its resources and remain solvent, in 1931 the company mortgaged the Daytona Beach factory for $500,000, and several of its other properties. The company failed to show profits until the mid-1930s, when Federal subsidies under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program were granted to bread manufacturers throughout the country to help feed the unemployed. Between 1935 and 1940, Columbia Baking Company enjoyed solid profits from its regional system. During World War II, as the need for bread products at home and for Allied forces increased, the company's earnings increased dramatically.

The Daytona Beach facility remained in operation under the Seybold brand name until after World War II. In 1946 the name of the factory was changed to reflect its parent company and continued to be called the Columbia Baking Company Factory until 1958, when it was taken over by Southern Bakeries, Inc. The plant was closed in 1969 and left vacant until the present. The building is now in the process of being converted for use as a stainless steel filtration manufacturing facility.

Building Description

The Seybold Baking Company Factory is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Orange Avenue and Lockhart Streets, seven blocks west of the historic downtown area of Daytona Beach. The area surrounding the bakery is primarily single-family residential, but several light industrial buildings are located in the vicinity along the south side of Orange Avenue. The property on which the building is located consists of seven lots within the Daytona Gardens Subdivision. The building measures 190 by 170 feet, and takes up most of the space on the lot. A few pine and palm trees provide the only landscape features on the property.

The building is an unusually ornate example of a Mediterranean Revival style factory. It has an irregular plan consisting of a two-story rectangular main block and a rear one-story extension. The structural system consists of brick load-bearing walls and steel I-beam post and beams, which support the roofs and upper floor of the central portion of the building.

The brick walls are three courses deep and are finished on the exterior with textured stucco. The roof is flat and covered with rolled composition surfacing. A low parapet rises above the roof line and is interrupted by a series of overhanging pent roofs that are covered with ceramic pantiles and have decorative carved rafter ends.

The main (south) facade of the factory is divided into three bays. The center bay contains a substantial amount of terra-cotta ornament. The dominant features of the center bay are its three sets of triple arch, multi-light windows, and two entrances. Each window grouping has three arched windows in the second story and three rectangular windows in the first story. The windows are recessed in a terra-cotta surround that consists of repeating arches with rosette medallion appliques, spiral pilasters with composite capitals and octagonal bases, and terra-cotta tiles with rectangular recessed panels that divide the upper and lower story windows. Flanking the three window groupings in the second story are single-arched windows with terra-cotta hoods and sills.

Below the single-arched windows are the two main entrances to the building. Single doors are recessed in an elaborate terra-cotta surrounds that consist of a segmental arch that is supported by narrow spiral pilasters with octagonal caps and leaf designs. The interior of the arch is ornamented with a scrolling foliate pattern, which surrounds a panel that contains a oval medallion with a basrelief of a woman. The outer surround of the doorway has an elaborate coronet with a center cartouche, obelisk finials, and carved foliated and scroll designs. The coronet is flanked by segmented pilasters with double composite capitals and carved medallion and foliated designs.

Two symmetrical bays flank the center bay. With the exception of a loading bay door in the eastern bay, the two bays are identical in design. They feature arched windows, set singly and in groups of three, in the second story and matching groupings of rectangular windows in the first.

The west elevation presents a long, unbroken expanse of textured stucco.

The north (rear) elevation, has a one-story flat roof extension projecting from the western portion of the rear elevation. Other significant features include rectangular windows set alone and in groups of three and two large loading bays with aluminum doors. At the northwest corner of the rear extension is a prominent round chimney stack that is constructed of hollow clay tile and rises well above the roof line of the building. It has a corbeled cap and a metal arched door at its base, which reads, "M.W. Kellogg Company, Chimney Builders, New York".

The east elevation consists of essentially two parts; a two-story unit located at the southeast corner and a long one-story unit to the north. The two-story portion contains arched and rectangular windows in groupings that match those found on the outer bays of the facade. The one-story unit features two large loading bays and several rectangular windows.

The interior of the Seybold Baking Company Factory retains most of its original spaces, wood and brickwork, and flooring. The first floor has three large rooms that originally contained the ovens and other machinery used by the bakery. All of that machinery has been removed and now the rooms are large open spaces. The eastern bay was used for loading and unloading products. It features a long raised concrete platform that runs the length of the building and a small brick office and vault in the northeast corner. The building's structural system is apparent in the visible massive I-beams that terminate at common bond brick walls and carry the load of the roof.

The southern quarter of the central bay is divided into several rooms. They are accessed by a hall that is lined with glazed buff brick. The floors in this area of the building are crushed pebble, glued, and sanded into smooth, square tiles. The rooms north of the hall consist of men's and women's restrooms and an employee lunch room. The restrooms contain some of their original fixtures, including large porcelain rinse basins. A doorway on the north wall of the hall opens into a large room that contains a series of steel I-beam posts with poured concrete bases, which support the I-beam joists of the second floor. An original freight elevator and stairway leading to the second floor are located in the northeast corner of the room and a spiral staircase and office are located in the southeast corner.

The west bay consists of a large open area that is broken only by two I-beam posts. In the southeast corner is a spiral metal staircase to the second floor.

The main access to the second floor is a staircase located at the southeast corner of the central bay. The stairs are metal and lined with a balustrade with square metal balusters and newel posts. The stairwell is lit by a single arched window.

The east bay of the second floor contained the offices for the plant. All of the partition walls in the area are original to the structure. They are finished with pine woodwork in the form of baseboards, window, and door casings, and Chair rails. The floors in this portion of the building are oak.

The center and west bays of the second floor are open work areas with pine flooring laid in a diagonal pattern.

The most significant alteration to the original appearance of the building is the removal of all of the plant's original ovens and machinery. Most of the original windows have been replaced and several window and door openings have been enclosed with concrete block.

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida

Seybold Baking Company Factory, Daytona Beach Florida