ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
Disneyland is at is 1313 South Harbor Blvd., Anaheim. Just down the road at 1000 South Harbor was the University of California’s Orange County Agricultural Extension building. It was extensive with offices for crop specialists, laboratories, an agricultural library, test kitchen and land where UC scientists grew experimental crops.
That was in the 1970s when Orange County was one of the richest, most productive agricultural areas in the country. The county’s South Coast strawberry fields yielded seven times per acre more than those of the other 49 states. Its lettuce fields were annually harvested five times over. Its fertile lemon groves produced nearly three fourths of the nation’s lemons.
And there were the oranges, tens of thousands of trees, their fruit ripening in a benign climate. During late summer the South Coast was the main Valencia orange supplier for the entire United States.
That was before Orange County was dismembered by rampant development, its rich soil entombed beneath hotels, housing tracts and shopping malls.
The Agricultural Extension Office isn’t there anymore either. Relocated, it is a shadow of what was, tucked away like an afterthought on a back lot at the county fair grounds. True, there is a U.C. field station south of Tustin. But one wonders how long the regents will fund it in these uncertain times.
The cows were first to go. Once there were towns where cows outnumbered people. Dairyland boasted 18 dairies within 1.76 miles. The town seal bore a cow, a chicken and a sprig of wheat. Nearby was Dairy City with its Holsteins grazing in lush pastures. Just across the border in L.A. County, Dairy Valley’s 100,000 cows outnumbered its residents 29 to 1. In 1966, its dairies a fading memory, the town was renamed Cerritos.
Meanwhile in back in Orange County it seemed silly to call a town Dairy City when there were no more dairies so it was renamed Cypress. Nearby Dairyland became La Palma, the “City of Vision.” The University of California reassigned its dairy specialist to Northern California.
In 1979 the University released a bulletin warning “Farm Advisors Threatened with Removal from Orange County.” It pointed out that the U.C. Extension was a bargain for the county with 80% of its cost covered by the federal government and the University. The County Board of Supervisors agreed and the Extension dodged the financial bullet.
Some farmers defied the developers no matter how generous the offer. In 1954 two brothers, Hiroshi and Masao Fujishige, bought 56 acres for $10,000 and began planting strawberries. A short distance away snorting bulldozers leveled 180 acres of orange trees to make room for Disneyland.
That sounds like a lot of trees but at the time, not so very many. Aerial photos show Disneyland as an island in a vast sea of orange trees that seemed to go on forever. But they didn’t of course.
Meanwhile inevitable change surrounded the Fujishige farm. Next door at the WIDE WORLD IN WAX tourists could see waxen figures of Albert Einstein, the Beatles and the Pope. At the far edge of the farm the soft chirping of crickets competed with music from the “La Vida a Go Go” nightclub.
The wax museum and nightclub are long gone. But the Fujishige brothers farmed on. Disney, wanting to expand, offered to buy the land. The brothers refused. In 1994 Disney offered to lease it for 32 million dollars. The brothers said no. They just liked being farmers. A decade later, with one brother dead and the second in a coma after an accident, the family gave in. Of the original 56 acres, Disney purchased 52.5 for 99.9 million dollars. In 2009 the Fujishige brother’s farm harvested its last strawberries.
But there were still the endless orange groves. “The Orange,” observed California writer Charles Lummis, “is not just a fruit, but a romance.” In 1872 developer W.T. Glassell decorated the front of his sales office in Richland with orange tree saplings. Not long afterward Richland was renamed Orange.
It was a good sales gimmick. In 1921 the County Board of Supervisors proclaimed Orange County “The land of the orange blossom.” By 1938 there were 67,536 acres of groves. There were so many orange trees that nobody noticed when they started to disappear. But they were. In 1963 28,000 acres remained. In 1968, 21,209 acres. By 1974 the number had fallen to 12,644. Today there are perhaps 80 acres left, scattered in small groves here and there.
Which brings us to five acres of scraggly untended orange trees that survive primarily because they refuse to die. The little grove is in a corner of Santa Ana, a community that is already 98% developed. Though neither watered nor pruned the trees persist in producing big round Valencia oranges. The current owners refuse to allow anyone to harvest them so they simply fall from the trees and rot.
For ninety years they were the pride and joy of the Sexlinger family. There were well over 200 trees in the grove then and a farmhouse. The house, still standing, is weather-beaten. But it was a home once where generations of Sexlinger children sat around the kitchen table doing their homework amid the smell of freshly baked bread.
In 2006 the last Sexlinger, Martha, passed away. In a well-meaning bequest she left the land to Concordia University. Today it is in the crosshairs of a developer who intends to clear the property and put up 24 townhouses.
That would be immensely sad. No, it is not a place where a great battle was fought or an historical figure lived. It’s just a farmhouse and some scraggly trees. But it is probably the last family orange grove left from a time when Orange County deserved its name.
The development company, to their credit, is aware of the heritage it represents. In their environmental report they promise to set up a “commemorative interpretive sign.” They say the sign “will include photographic display of the farmhouse and verbiage describing the history of the Sexlinger farm and the significance of the citrus industry to the region.” They even offer to let the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society salvage “potential artifacts” from the farmhouse before it is reduced to kindling.
But a gutsy little band called the SAVE OUR ORCHARD COALITION has a better idea. Instead, with Santa Ana’s and/or Orange County’s blessing, preserve the farm as the “Sexlinger Center for Urban Agriculture.” Make it a place where school children can pluck an orange from a tree with its leaves still wet with dew. Let them scatter feed to chickens in a real farmyard. Plant community gardens where both children and adults can feel the soil crumble through their fingers.
Maybe find an old tractor and start it up once in a while. The vast majority of Orange County children have never heard a tractor in their lives. Maybe they ought to. And maybe, on orange blossom scented evenings families could bring folding chairs and watch movies outdoors.
Yes, argues the Coalition, the Center could be financially self-sustaining as nonprofit through membership donations, admissions, special fee events. They bubble over with ideas like eco labs with outdoor learning stations and workshops. Look them up on facebook (SAVE THE SEXLINGER ORANGE ORCHARD). Or just Google SEXLINGER FARM.
But hurry. In late January, 2012 each side will plead its case in the quiet wood-paneled precincts of a government hearing. Should the vote favor the developer bulldozers will cough a cloud of bluish exhaust and shove aside the last little family grove in Orange County. And you won’t even have had time to say goodbye.
Additional books and short stories by Michael A. McKeever can be found on Amazon.com/Kindlestore
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