08/19/2026
The Forgotten Mango Man: the curious life of Orange Pound
History has been kind to some of Coconut Grove’s mango pioneers. Captain John Haden gave us the Haden mango. Leith Kent gave us the Kent. Their names are tied to exquisite branded delicious fruits. But there was another man working among the mango trees of early Coconut Grove whose name is rarely remembered. His name was Orange Pound. A perfect name for a Coconut Grove grower.
Orange never had a celebrated mango named for him. What he gave the world was something less romantic, but enormously important. He figured out how to reliably make better mangoes.
His story begins, improbably enough, not in a mango grove but in a cab of a steam locomotive.
The Engineer
Before Orange Pound became a horticulturist, he was a railroad engineer in Bartow, Florida. A wonderfully revealing item survives in the old trade journal Locomotive Engineering. Pound sent the editor a photograph of the interior of Engine No. 209 of the Savannah, Florida & Western Railway. He was not interested in how handsome the locomotive looked. He wanted to discuss how it worked. The journal signed his contribution simply:
Orange Pound, Engr.
S.F. & W. Ry.
Bartow, Fla.
It’s a small detail, but perhaps an important one. Orange Pound seems to have been a man who noticed systems that worked, what did not, and how something might be improved. This instinct would follow him to Coconut Grove.
Retirement Among the Trees
Around 1901, near the end of his railroad career, Pound bought property in the Village of Coconut Grove, in Center Grove. A Miami newspaper man visiting in 1904 described the transformation: in just three years, the land had gone from woods to developing tropical orchards. Pound planted avocados, limes, citrus and mangoes. He was already experimenting with varieties such as Mulgoba, Philippine, Number Eleven, and Roberts. Some trees were already fruiting. He was visiting the property with his wife and daughter while preparing for retirement there. Coconut Grove at the time was a mix of settlement and wilderness, with tropical fruit plantings spreading through the hammock and limestone. For a curious engineer, a lover of trees, it must have felt like an open-air laboratory. He came to retire. He did not stay retired.
The Mango Problem
South Florida growers faced a persistent issue: mango seeds did not reliably reproduce the parent fruit. A superb mango could produce a tree, but its fruit might be entirely different. To preserve quality varieties growers experimented with grafting, inarching, and budding (a single bud is used). One of the growers, P.J. Wester, began testing mango budding around 1904 but found his results unreliable. But Orange Pound kept on experimenting. Like a true engineer, he just kept observing, adjusting and repeating. Eventually, he succeeded.
The Pound Method
In 1909, on his Coconut Grove property, Orange Pound achieved a major breakthrough: successful shield budding mangoes on a commercial scale. This was not a small trial. He applied his method to 300 plants, with 85 percent success. Wester was impressed. Writing in the Miami Metropolis in 1910 - not only the technical achievement but also Pound’s willingness to share his results freely with other growers. Pound started an industry from his backyard in Center Grove. The Pound technique referred to as an “epoch in the mango industry”, with significance “beyond South Florida”. Later horticultural histories, including Julia Morton’s Fruits of Warm Climates, credit Orange Pound of Coconut Grove with bringing shield budding into reliable commercial use, forever shaping modern mango propagation. For a time, growers even referred to his method of grafting as the “Pound Method” It was the closest he ever came to having a mango named after him.
More Than Mangoes
Pound also worked with avocados. In 1908, the USDA recorded receiving budwood from “Mr. Orange Pound, Cocoanut Grove, Fla.” – taken from a tree belonging to Mr. Peacock, another early and familiar Coconut Grove grower. This fruit was noted for its rich flavor and unusually small seed. This entry places Pound within a broader network of early South Florida horticulturists, nurserymen and plant explorers who turned Coconut Grove into a center of tropical specimen experimentation. Pound was not working in isolation, and he was notably generous with his findings. He is praised for his “public-spirited sharing of results”. This generosity defines him as much as his technical skill.
Then He Disappeared
Orange Pound had little time to enjoy his retirement. He died at age 67 on June 10,1913 and is buried at Woodlawn Park North Cemetery & Mausoleum in Miami. After his death, Florida’s mango industry expanded around the world. New varieties emerged, nurseries expanded, and mangoes became a defining feature of South Florida agriculture and identity. We know names like Haden, Kent, Glenn and et al have been entered, rightfully so in the history books. But Orange Pound’s name faded. But not entirely.
He survives in Miami Dade County property records. Around Orange Street and Matilda Street in Center Grove an old sub-division still appears. ORANGE POUND SUB- PENT HOMESTEAD, Plat Book 3, Page 34. For example, the house and land at 3075 Orange Street is legally tied to that subdivision, and nearby properties carry the same reference. The Pound’s homestead may have been situated on the corner of Matilda & Orange. The oldest house I found was built in 1922, after Pound’s death, but it is safe to assume that this neighborhood was once where he experimented with fruits and the street name Orange is most likely named after him, and not citrus. Today, these houses, lots, and trees overlap with his history and ours.
Orange Pound did not create a famous mango. He solved a different problem: how to reliably produce the best ones. In Coconut Grove, he applied the same mindset that brilliant people often do.
He planted. He experimented. He failed. He tried again. And when he succeeded, he shared the result. The mangoes spread. His method endured. The industry advanced. And the engineer was largely forgotten.
When you hear mention the names Fairchild, Gifford, Montgomery and other well- known Florida botanists and horticulturists - I would add Orange to this acclaimed mix.
I meant to write this post in time for the Fairchild Mango Festival in June, but summer is evaporating quickly. I have my own mango history. I lived in North Grove, and my front yard mango tree was believed to be planted in 1944. My neighbors shared that the tree was a progeny of a Captain John Haden tree, gifted by his wife who lived not too far away. I do not know if this is true, but I can tell you it produced absolutely the best mango. Sadly, we lost the tree during Hurricane Irma.
History- left a very sweet taste in my mouth. 🥭🥭🥭
