By Gary A. Warner – The Orange County Register
Riverside, Calif.
– California has a strong citrus heritage. By 1930, citrus was a
$130 million-a-year business, making it more profitable than the
gold rush of the state’s famed
”
49ers.
”
By Gary A. Warner – The Orange County Register
Riverside, Calif. – California has a strong citrus heritage. By 1930, citrus was a $130 million-a-year business, making it more profitable than the gold rush of the state’s famed “49ers.”
But in little more than two generations, the expansive “Empire of the Orange” that once stretched from the San Fernando Valley to the edges of the Mojave Desert and south to Camp Pendleton has all but disappeared in a tidal wave of people, asphalt and concrete.
Remnants remain, sprinkled amid the tract homes, condos and shopping malls.
The most evocative reminders are in Riverside and Redlands.
The Citrus Heritage Driving Tour Map takes you to the Parent Navel Tree, one of two Brazilian trees sent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., to Riverside in 1873.
Oranges had been grown in Southern California since 1804, but the early varieties were sour and full of seeds.
Then came the Brazilian oranges. The first recipient, Eliza Tibbets, used cuttings to establish orchards in Riverside, then shared her bounty with other farmers around California and eventually the West.
The years have not been kind to the Parent Navel Tree. It was transplanted to its current site in 1902, then a quiet corner in an affluent farming neighborhood. Today, it’s on a lonely street corner in a slightly scruffy part of town.
The narrow Gage Canal designed in the 1880s to bring water to the citrus fields often runs next to Victoria Avenue, a National Historic Landmark that’s a kind of linear arboretum. Along the avenue are the last remaining acres of citrus cultivated in the area.
Victoria Avenue runs out to the California Citrus State Historic Park, where more than 100 varieties of orange trees are on display.
The new visitors center holds a small museum where the history of citrus around the world and in Southern California is displayed.
Getting There: The Riverside Visitors Center, located at 3750 University Ave., Suite 175, provides the Riverside Citrus Heritage Driving Tour Map. Info: (909) 222-4700 or www.riversidecb.com
