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Mrs. ElizabethTibbets of Riverside wrote to the Bureau of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., in 1873, asking for two of the newly acquired Washington Navel Orange trees, never thinking that she was establishing a California industry. Nearly all of that kind of orange trees in California are descended from those two trees. The Washington Navel is thought to have originated in Brazil about 1820, and there were 12 of them sent to Washington in 1870. One of the Tibbets’ trees was later given to Frank Miller (owner of what is now Mission Inn) who planted it in his hotel patio in 1903. In fact, President Theodore Roosevelt was visiting at that time, and helped to plant the tree. The other tree was eventually given to the City of Riverside and can still be seen at the intersection of Palm and Magnolia Avenues. Although the early Padres at the San Gabriel Mission planted orange trees in 1804, and William Wolfskill planted orange, lemon and lime trees on 2 acres east of Alameda Street (in what is now downtown Los Angeles) about 1841, the first citrus in the Mud Springs area is believed to have been planted by Crawford P. Teague and his sons in 1886 at the southwest corner of Walnut and Cienega (now Arrow Highway). The Teagues had first tried hay and grain, only to have their crops rained out, dried out, and even blown away by high winds. Citrus, though, proved successful, and only four years later, they had 250,000 trees in cultivation. The California “Citrograph” magazine of October, 1965, has the account of the origin of the Washington Navel Orange, the Valencia Orange and the Lemon, which were all staples of the citrus sold from this area. The Valencia Orange probably originated in China, and spread to many parts of the globe under different names. It is valued here because the fruit ripens later than the Navel, thus lengthening the season. There are several varieties of lemon, and conflicting stories of their origins. Many groves in the San Dimas area were planted to lemons because of our being at a little higher elevation, and, until 1913 - “frostless.” The San Dimas Press of 1912, advertised that San Dimas, 26 miles east of Los Angeles, had no large groves - most were 10 to 20 acres and its “location right against the foothills ensures an absolutely FROSTLESS CONDITION.” |
This changed abruptly in the winter of 1913 when we received our first bad frost, and after that,
One of the Teague sons, Robert M., in 1889 started a seedling nursery in the San Dimas Wash, north of Foothill, west of San Dimas Canyon Road. By the turn of the century, he had 6 to 700,000 seedling trees and it was said to be the largest citrus nursery in the world. He filled orders from all over the world, even shipping to Spain, ltaly, and South America. The citrus growers had their problems. In 1895, Sheridan Stowell had 16 crews working in his fumigating business to combat “black scale and other insect infestations.” His method was to place “granular cyanide dissolved in commercial sulfuric acid” in pots under the tented trees. The local paper reported that this brought “uncertain and often astonishing results.” Spray rigs operated regularly in the groves. In 1930, the Aero Corporation of California was spraying from a “specially- designed dusting airship,” an application of nicotine dust for aphis control, sulphur dust for red spider infestation. Another problem was theft. In 1925, it was reported that in addition to stealing fruit left in packing boxes in the groves overnight, several enterprising people “sold” fruit still on the trees several times over. When the buyer brought his crew to pick, he found that the seller had no rights of ownership at all. In the 1950’s, grove owners had problems with families moving into the newly-built tract homes. One owner said that the mother would simply hand her children a sack and tell them to “go and get some oranges.” It was about that time that more notices were put up, and later, fences around the groves. Most of the fruit was shipped across the country by rail, but in 1921, the San Dimas Lemon Association made the first shipment of lemons to Philadelphia via the Panama Canal. The shipment was guaranteed to arrive in 15 days, which was the same as by railroad to the Atlantic Coast. The Association felt it was a saving in freight rates and an improvement in storage conditions, since the railroad did not experiment with refrigerated cars until 1929. The same year, 1921, two cars of San Dimas oranges left the Los Angeles Harbor for London, also by way of the Panama Canal. The whole valley was soon planted to citrus, and in the spring, the lovely scent of the blossoms perfumed the air. The 1919 San Dimas Press reports that one 14-year-old, 10 acre grove planted to lemons and navel and Valencia oranges was sold for $35,000 cash, so citrus was also a lucrative business for many years. However, after World War II, the ‘quick decline disease’, coupled with more and more subdivisions and freeways, spelled the end of the citrus era. The last packing house closed in 1963, and the last grove (on the southwest corner of San Dimas Avenue and Arrow Highway) was plowed under just a few years ago. |
