http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_14267158
Great Freeze of '13 had ruinous effects
Mark Landis, Correspondent
Posted: 01/25/2010 08:24:52 PM PST
In January 1913, all of Southern California - indeed, much of the West - was locked in the icy grip of a record-breaking freeze that stymied local economies for years to come. In just four remarkable days, Mother Nature slammed the region with the "Great Freeze of 1913." In the San Bernardino Valley, the results were especially disastrous.
"In many ways, the Great Freeze of 1913 had a more devastating effect on the San Bernardino Valley than the Great Depression," said Redlands historian Tom Atchley. "Nearly all of the local businesses were tied to the citrus industry. Even the tourist trade was affected because so many trees were damaged, and the tourists wanted to see beautiful green groves."
By 1913, citrus growing in Southern California was well established, but it was still a relatively new industry. The first orange groves in the San Bernardino Valley were set out in 1853 by Anson Van Leuven in the old Mission District of Redlands.
Saturday, Jan. 4, 1913, started out as a rather balmy winter day with a morning temperature of 60 degrees. But as the morning progressed, winds picked up steadily and grew to near hurricane strength, raising huge dust clouds all across Southern California.
A weather warning was issued stating that the unpredicted winds were caused by a low-pressure system centered over Colorado and heavy frost was expected overnight and into Sunday morning. News of the impending freeze spread quickly among the citrus growers. Some growers didn't have telephones, and young boys on bikes were hired by the packinghouses to help spread the word.
The growers who had smudge pots quickly set them up to help fend off the frigid weather. Smudge pots were basically crude, oil-burning heaters used in orchards when temperatures were expected to drop below freezing.
Atchley grew up on his family's orchards, and he worked on "smudger crews" tending the smudge pots through the subfreezing nights. "The pots hold 10 gallons of fuel, and they would usually last for two nights," Atchley said. "A smudge crew was made up of six to eight people, and we would start lighting the pots at 1 a.m. and put them out at around 6 a.m."
On Sunday, Jan. 5, the temperature reported in parts of Highland and Redlands had dropped to a record low of 17 degrees.
At 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan.6, the temperature in San Bernardino dropped to 26 degrees - the point at which citrus becomes damaged. The high temperature that day only reached 38 degrees, and the mercury dropped to 25 degrees at 11 p.m.
Oil to feed the smudge pots was running low, and the railroads, fearing huge losses on citrus shipments, quickly pitched in to bring in extra oil tank cars. To expedite the shipments, the oil tank cars were mixed with passenger trains and hastily dispatched to distribution points.
On Tuesday, Jan. 7, the freeze took its most brutal turn as temperatures dropped to 18 degrees and held there for six hours. All across Southern California, frozen water pipes burst, and fire hydrants ruptured. Trolley cars with frozen brakes skidded helplessly into anything unfortunate enough to be in the way.
Fears of major crop losses and wildly varying estimates of crop damage began circulating among growers and in the newspapers. The San Bernardino Sun reported: "From Riverside to Los Angeles, every acre of orange and lemon groves has been frozen."
The freeze continued through the early hours of Wednesday, Jan. 8, but the big chill had finally broken. The weather reports were predicting the end of the worst, and when rain came later in the day, nearly everyone in Southern California breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Even after the bitter freeze ended, the strange frigid weather continued to play havoc around the West.
On Saturday, Jan. 11, The Sun reported: "Even the swift and unruly Colorado River had succumbed to the powerful influence of Jack Frost." The record-breaking low temperatures had dropped below 20 degrees at Needles on Wednesday and Thursday. Thick sheets of ice stretched from the shores toward the river's center, and the current was filled with huge blocks of ice.
By late January, the California growers' worst fears had been realized. On Jan. 24, The Sun reported: "The Federal Board of Food and Drug Inspection had issued an order forbidding the sale in interstate commerce of fruits which have been damaged in the recent freeze in California." That same day, the first train carload of frosted California oranges was turned away in Chicago and declared "unfit for consumption."
Countless farmers, packinghouses, and businesses in the San Bernardino Valley were ruined in the months and years following the freeze. Local lore claimed that the population in Redlands alone dropped by nearly half as a result of the freeze.
Some groves escaped with minimal damage while others, seemingly at random, suffered almost a complete loss of their crops.
The actual damage to California's citrus crops caused by the Great Freeze of 1913 was later illustrated by the final production numbers measured in boxes: 1912 produced a crop of 15,273,000 boxes. The 1913 crop dropped to less than half at 6,870,000 boxes.
Several other major freezes have occurred over the years, but the Great Freeze of 1913 was among the most disastrous for the San Bernardino Valley for a variety of reasons.
In 1913, the local economy was almost completely dependent on the citrus industry. Weather forecasts didn't provide enough advance warning to prepare for frosts. The citrus crops were sold as whole fruit, and a significant juicing industry had not been developed. A far greater portion of the crops could have been salvaged if the fruit could have quickly been turned into juice.
Immediately following the 1913 freeze, a sorting machine was invented that could separate frozen fruit from the undamaged fruit. This allowed the packinghouses to confidently ship a product that was proven to be of good quality.
Agricultural scientists also came up with better methods of freeze protection using wind machines and cleaner-burning smudge pots. Along with the scientific advances, local economies diversified and became less dependent on citrus.
