Column: Museum Musings
By Deborah Smith
Article Launched: 12/10/2007 08:05:57 PM PST

The Oranges of Butte County

Part I

My musings today start at the Oroville Pioneer Museum exhibit of the Orange Fairs of Butte County. The display on the back right corner of the first floor is quite amazing. I wondered why these exhibits were so lavishly created and how they fit into Butte County's general history? I found out that citrus growing here was very important to permanent settlement. I also found that I couldn't tell the story of oranges without delving into the Butte County Historical Society's involvement with the Mother Orange Tree. And I learned another important lesson. History is sometimes buried in fable and fish stories.

How Oranges Got Started In Butte County

Once upon a time there was the Mother Orange Tree. It sounds like some old world fairy story, doesn't it? It evokes associations with the Tree of Life and our ancestral family trees. What type of orange was it? Some writers called it a "'Mazatlan orange." In fact, there is no such variety as a Mazatlan orange, only a tree that comes from Mazatlan and there is no hard evidence it didn't come from someplace else. The Mother Orange Tree is actually a Mediterranean Sweet. The Mediterranean is an old variety that pre-dates both the Navel and the Valencia.

One story claims that the tree came by way of Europe to Mexico and was brought to the first mission in San Diego by Juniper Sera some time around 1769. We do know that the missions had orange trees. Others say a miner transported it during
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the gold rush.

Truth is, we really don't know how u got, to Sacramento. But we can document that the tree was one of two trees purchased by Hon. J. E. N. Lewis of Oroville, a major stockholder in the Bidwell Bar Bridge Company for $10 from Jesse Morrill's garden on L Street in Sacramento. One tree died. Howard Burt, the foreman at the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge, planted our tree as a two year old on the east side of the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge in 1857. It was the first orange tree planted in Northern California. The next bridge-keeper, I. R. Ketchum, was responsible for moving it from one side of the bridge to the other to save it from being washed away after the hard winter rains of 1862. A note written about Ketchum in 1884 said he had "plucked upwards of 2,000 oranges from it," the year before. Settlers and miners of the gold rush delighted in its sweet fruit. Ketchum was so enamored of that tree that he asked that his remains be buried near it, and they were.

From the Mother Orange to Orange Groves in Butte County

Robert Sutton Frederick said that Ketchum gave Judge C.F. Lott six oranges from the mother tree whose seeds developed into 20 orange trees within the next 20 years; some he gave to friends around the valley and some are still growing here today. We do know that Lott was the first president of the Butte County Citrus Growers Association. By 1870 the Oroville Weekly Mercury wrote that citrus trees had spread around the county and were "In almost every garden." By 1885 near 9,000 trees were sited. The commercial orange groves were started as navels grafted onto the old rootstock. In 1892 the Oroville Citrus Association shipped the first Navels. Navels are a better commercial crop, easier to peel, larger, and seedless.

In those days, before the big freeze of December 1932, oranges were seen as the new golden promise. Once the gold digging was over, it was oranges that brought schemers and dreamers to Oroville. Early success seems to have had a lot to do with the climate and soil, successful marketing practices, luck and hard work.

Some factors that helped oranges get their start were the fact that the miners had already helped to divert streams for irrigation. Because of the climate here Navel oranges ripened sooner than those in the south and had the early holiday (Thanksgiving and Christmas) market to themselves. Although Orland is the farthest north that oranges will thrive, Oroville and the surrounding area was better because it was less likely to be plagued with frost. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 California was accessible and the railroads did a hard sell of northern California lands. Immigrant societies developed plans to pump up interest and organizations formed to irrigate and market plots of land for orange growing. Newspapers spread the news worldwide that a tract of land could be purchased cheap and reap a harvest competitive with southern California's promises of sunshine and wealth. And last but not least were the agricultural fairs and expositions.

Source: http://www.orovillemr.com/search/ci_7687069?IADID=Search-www.orovillemr.com-www.orovillemr.com

The oranges of Butte County Part II

Source: http://www.orovillemr.com/news/ci_7746498

Column: Museum Musings- The oranges of Butte County Part II
By Deborah Smith
Article Launched: 12/17/2007 07:33:16 PM PST

Citrus Fairs and Colonies

The first Northern California State Citrus Fair was held during the 1885-86 growing season in Sacramento. Of 12 counties, Butte County won first prize. The following year a beautiful spectacle with electric lights and gas jets emblazoned the large pavilion in Sacramento. In December 20, 1887 Oroville had its own fair. Judge C.F. Lott was on the committee. A canvas "Tabernacle" was erected around 5 large orange trees on the courthouse lawn and with 250 exhibitors. At these fairs Orovillians displayed oranges, lemons and dried fruits in formations of beehives, mining implements, pyramids, horns of plenty, and more, even a 12-foot replica of a Gothic church. Other cities in the county also had lavish displays. Later oranges and olives shared the fairs and even added auto and poultry shows. The auditorium at the foot of Myers Street was built to house the displays.

Citrus Colonies sprang up all over Butte County, in Oroville, Palermo, Thermalito, Bangor, Honcut and Durham (where Judge Lot had his trees). Some drew trainloads of interested people from San Francisco that were enticed and promoted by free picnics, sightseeing and dancing. Some absentee landholders like William Randolph Hearst of the San Francisco Examiner bought into these land development schemes.

Some developers stirred up interest among farmers from as far away as Denmark.

By 1900 the area around Oroville had established 3,300 acres. A 1913 report conducted by engineers in San
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Francisco studied the condition of the orange groves at that time. They studied the climate; water, irrigation and drainage; soils and the market and came up with a very positive report about the health and future possibilities for success. The value of the groves was estimated at $35,494 by the end of that year.

The Big Freeze

The change came on one horrid night, December 11,1932 when the temperature dropped below 13 deg. F. Fifty percent of the crop was killed. This big chill, along with Citrus Blast (a bacterial disease which is more prevalent in this climate than elsewhere) heated competition between cities and hardships encountered during the depression made many orange growers switch to other crops.

What Has Happened To The Orange Industry In Butte County?

As of 2002 the citrus acreage of Butte County totaled 130 acres. Most of them are small family businesses that sell their crops over the Internet. Today oranges are mostly grown in three counties; Fresno with 23,885 acres, Kem, 28,320 acres and Tulare with 67,714 acres. The surprise is that Orange County had 0 acres in 2002.

What Happened to the Mother Orange Tree?

I had a very interesting talk with Art Peters who is on the "Mother Orange Tree Committee" at the Butte County Historical Society. He told me the tree was moved from Bidwell's Bar in 1964, before the construction of the Oroville Dam, to the State Parks and Recreation Headquarters. At its new location, on Glen Drive, Art noticed its weakened condition after the 1998 frost. He has a background in agriculture and helped stir up interest, which led to the University or California County Farm Advisor being asked to "evaluate and create a plan for best management practices." A committee was formed to help oversee its care. Other orange trees were propagated from its bud wood, one in Sank Park, one on the grounds of the Butte County Historical Society Museum and a third at the Patrick Ranch Museum in Chico.

The groups heroic efforts helped establish it as Historical Landmark No. 1043 and placed a plaque by the picnic table up hill from the tree that states it is the oldest living orange tree in California and important to the orange industry in California. Art says the tree's current location in too cold for optimal conditions but there are practices in place now to protect it from the ravages of weather. I would like to thank Art Peters, who helped me get the facts for this article and he and the Butte County Historical Society's Mother Orange Tree Committee and California State Parks and Recreation for helping keep the tree alive and well for the rest of us to enjoy.

The last lines of "The Mother Orange Tree" written by H.J. Webber go like this,

"Live on old tree in memory

Of the garish scenes of old,

Of the fields of gold and hearts so bold

That enriched thy destiny.

Refreshing men by your fruits divine.

Stay on, and on, in your golden sphere

A noble task, man's life to cheer,

A boon God willed as thine."

I agree with Robert Sutton Frederick who concluded that although the orange industry did not continue to provide as large a harvest after the frost of 1932, the industry's importance in the settlement and development of Butte County cannot be denied.

Frederick, Robert Sutton. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Chico State College, The Development of the Citrus Industry of Butte County: From the Mother Orange Tree to 1900.

McGie, Joseph F. A History of the Orange and Olive Industry in the Oroville-Palermo Area at the Period of 1913 Butte county Historical Society Diggins, Vol. 16, N0.4

Letter on Origin of Mother Orange, Diggin's Vol. 19 N0.1,1975

Nice story, I enjoyed reading it. Butte county is straight north of Sacramento, California.

From the J.E. Coit Citrus Fruits book page
22. It is worth noting that during this same
time period that Citrus were growing as far
North as Shasta County (Coit, page 25).



Jim

Below is a link to a California Counties map
that gives an idea as to where Butte County
is in relation to all the other Counties in this
state.

http://www.csac.counties.org/default.asp?id=6

Jim