by Paul R. Spitzzeri
In addition to the fact that Workman and Temple family members raised them from the 1850s into the 1930s, a prime reason for this multi-part post on some of the early history of walnuts in Los Angeles is because, while there has been a good deal written about citrus, especially oranges, in the region, comparatively little has been walnuts, important as they were in the agricultural economy of the area for so long.
Speaking of which, an attempt has been made to put the raising of the walnut in a larger context of the ascendancy of agriculture, especially after flood and drought ravaged the region in the first half of the 1860s and during the area’s first development boom that followed the Civil War years and lasted into the mid-Seventies.
Moving into 1872, as growth continued apace, we find further advertising from the early commercial nurseries in the Angel City, including that of Childs and Company, comprised of Ozro W. Childs and his brother-in-law William Huber (who, however, died in the summer of that year), and which operated under the moniker of the Los Angeles Nursery and Fruit Garden. Situated on Main Street between 11th and 12th streets, with the northern neighbor being Elijah H. Workman, the enterprise offered a wide variety of trees, including walnuts, but promoted the first Languedoc Almonds offered in the city.
Another ad from early in the year was from Mrs. Harriet Shaw, whose husband Joseph was a physician, and the sale of between 50,000 and 100,000 orange, lemon, lime and English walnut trees from the Los Angeles Nursery on San Pedro Street, two miles south of downtown, near Jefferson. In its 6 June edition, the Los Angeles News featured the place after noting that Los Angeles “has been often appropriately named the City of Gardens” and adding “the streets leading from our city are all lined with orange and lemon groves, and extensive vineyards. Moreover,
On San Pedro street, there are some of the choicest gardens we have—nurseries wherein all kinds of semi-tropical fruit and ornamental trees peculiar to this climate and soil, are cultivated. One of them is the nursery of Dr. Shaw . . . Last week, we had occasion to visit the Doctor’s little earthly paradise. It consists of a thirty-acre lot enclosed within a live willow fence which affords protection against winds as well as against trespassers. Eighteen years ago the lot was a barren waste . . . it was then purchased from the city for $10, and an additional $10 for recording, etc. [with a promise to spend $200 on improvements within a year]. The Doctor and his industrious wife have through their united exertion, converted the wilderness into a land flowing with milk and honey.
The account noted hundreds of apricot trees in one corner and another section with citrus and walnuts. Later in the year, another major nursery, that of Thomas A. Garey (formerly of El Monte and a future founder of Artesia and Pomona) and his Semi-Tropical Nurseries, also on San Pedro Street north of the Shaw’s place, was advertised, including his inventory of walnut trees. Then there was prominent viticulturist Mathew Keller, who, at the end of February, advertised French, German and Spanish grapes as well as citrus and three-year-old walnut trees for sale.
A new estate founded on Jefferson Street near Garey and the Shaws, was that of educator William B. Lawlor, proprietor of the private Lawlor Institute and whose Carson City, Nevada school was briefly descibed by Mark Twain. The Star of 12 January remarked that Lawlor “during the last year, planted on his place, [on Main Street] near Jefferson street, sixteen hundred orange trees, two hundred lime trees and two hundred walnut trees” and “intends this grove to be one of the finest in the State.” He even uprooted 1,200 grapevines “to give more scope for the growth of the fruit trees.”
The Los Angeles Star of the 22nd provided a brief description of the walnut industry in the region, recording that
The first English walnuts were planted in Los Angeles county in 1831. They commenced bearing in three years, the crop increasing every year. In the year 1863 the crop amounted to 9,200 pounds. Previous to 1860 the walnuts used in California were all imported from China and Chile to the amount of nearly 30,000 pounds annually.
It was claimed, however, that locally grown walnuts had a superior flavor to imported ones, while near the Mission San Gabriel, where the Franciscan missionaries introduced it, “the walnut tree is found of larger size and bearing the best of nuts.” The article concluded that “Los Angeles county supplies a large demand for walnuts, and as Southern California becomes more extensively settled, walnut trees will be grown more extensively, adding an increased resource of wealth to this delightful portion of our state.
The Star of 20 February briefly commented that “a large number of orange and walnut trees have been removed from the city, and transplanted on the ranches in the vicinity of San Gabriel.” A week later, the News visited the El Molino Viejo, or old Mission San Gabriel mill in modern San Marino, owned by Edward J.C. Kewen. In discussing his Edenic domain, the paper recorded,
There are 400 acres of land enclosed, and much of it already laid out in orange, walnut, and other fruit trees. There are a thousand of the former already planted, but only eighty of them are at present bearing. Seven hundred young walnut trees have also been planted, all of which will be bearing this year. Col. Kewen proposed to set out a thousand more walnut trees. All the plants are raised by him from the seed.
While the San Gabriel Valley had far more water and, consequently, a much more diverse use of the farm and ranch lands within it, the San Fernando Valley, now dubbed “The Valley,” as if there was only one of any consequence, was far drier and more devoted to livestock raising and dry farming of wheat and other field crops.
The Star of 16 April, however, reported on “The Mission Gardens,” around the Mission San Fernando and which “each containing 32 acres, are respectively owned by Don Andreas [Andrés] Pico and Eulogio de Celis, Jr..” The latter was said to be “lavish in his attention to his garden, which is unequaled in its attractions and had 7,000 grapevines, 320 olive trees and “a large number of orange, fig, peach, pear, and pomegranite [sic] trees.”
The water came from a “ditch of ever-flowing water, carried from a flume, or dam, having been constructed seventy years ago,” or around the time of the Mission’s founding in 1797 and drawn from an area in Sylmar now owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The account added that, on the land of Don Andrés, general and hero of the Californio resistance to the American invasion a quarter-century before, and brother of Pío, the last governor of Mexican California (who, in 1869, sold most of the southern part of Rancho ex-Mission San Fernando to Isaac Lankershim and Isaac Van Nuys to finance his Pico House hotel on the Plaza in Los Angeles):
The Pico garden has 300 olive trees, 12,000 grape vines, and a large number of fig, peach, pear, walnut, almond and pomegranite [sic] trees, all in excellent bearing order.
There were a slew of promotional articles, of which there were a great many in the Angel City press, in the Star during June, including “Los Angeles as a Home” in the edition of the 11th, which informed readers that, for immigrants from the Eastern states, “the valley of Los Angeles is in high favor with this class of home-buyers—the fascinating charms of our climate, our luxuries in the way of native products, make it a most attractive point.”
There were not many who could afford, even if they wanted, a ranch, but there were quite a few who could operate a vineyard or an orange grove, among other farming types, “so with almost every branch of enterprise and business, our fair valley seems to hold out many very favorable inducements.” It added that “of the profitable varieties of trees growing in and around Los Angeles are, the walnut, in all its native vigor and profusion” as well as almonds, citrus, pomegranates, palms, olives and figs.
The Star concluded that “with railroad communication the news of this unrivaled region will become more speedily known, and better appreciated.” In fact, in 1871, Congress, in issuing a charter for the Southern Pacific to build to the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona, mandated that the railroad company build through Los Angeles in order to do so. In fall 1872, a subsidy was approved by Los Angeles County voters amounting to some $600,000 cash and control of the sole local line, the Los Angeles and San Pedro, terminating at the port in Wilmington that was just starting to get federal attention and dollars. With this vital transportation,
Our rich lands will no longer lie waste, and our valley from the Ocean beach to the mountains’ base will be filled with farm palaces and homes of beauty and happiness. Let us pray—for railroads.
Two days later, it published a piece on “Our Fruits,” in which it was remarked that “the raising of tropical fruits in Los Angeles county is a large and growing business, and promises to become one of great importance.” With citrus, profits to growers were pegged at from $20-50 per tree at 75 of these to the acre, while, “walnuts yield a great profit from full-grown trees pf from $600 to $1000 an acre, annually” and only had to be irrigated in upland locales, while “in the valleys they grow well without it.”
The Star of the 21st, under the heading of “The Land of the Glorious Sunset,” proclaimed,
For the last and most westerly settlements of America—the Southern California coast—it is left to eclipse Italy and all other portions of the world for climate. Land of the ruby sunset, thou art truly the Valley of the Angels! . . . If not at Los Angeles, where then is the garden of paradise?
Purple prose promoted “a broad sea of perpetual green” in the Los Angeles Valley and a scan throughout the area “rests upon a landscape unequalled in the world. Birds and flowers galore abounded and walnuts were among the bounteous yields of farms and ranches. With the balmiest of weather, the paean ended, “the condition of our climate should attract thousands of people” who would enjoy the Mediterranean climate “in conjunction with the language, laws and society of America.”
Six days later, the paper quoted from writings in the New York Tribune from Charles Nordhoff, whose travelogue was soon published as California: For Health, Pleasure and Residence, A Book for Travellers and Settlers. This highly influential tome led to a significant migration to the Golden State, including to greater Los Angeles, and a section in the Star on “California Orchards” and with a subheading of “Remarkable Profits” observed,
The English walnut in the extensive orchards of Mr. [Leonard J.] Rose, [at Sunny Slope] near Los Angeles; in Mr. Child’s [sic], in that place, and in a few other cases in San Bernardino, and here, shows itself as a stately, magnificent tree, with lean, grayish bark, and wide-spreading branches. It is, like our own black walnut, a tree of slow growth, and does not begin to bear until it is seven or eight years of age. At twelve years, with thorough culture and irrigation, it bears from 50 to 75 pounds of nuts; at fifteen years, from 100 to 150 pounds; 30 trees may stand on an acre [with almonds planted between them to pay cultivation costs and offer a profit and then removed when walnuts “cover the ground] . . . The nuts this year sold for 12 1-2 cents per pound, in Los Angeles . . . the yield would be $375 an acre.
The writer went on to note that cultivation and irrigation were the only costs and one worker could handle 30 acres, while “it is asserted that the tree is absolutely free from disease or enemies in the State.” No pruning was required and transplantation could occur at three years “so that a planter would get a crop in seven years.” It was also reported that a 20-year old walnut could yield 250 pounds, while two trees in Santa Barbara that were 30 years old generated $50 each annually for several past seasons.
Nordhoff visited Rose’s Sunny Slope ranch in the northern San Gabriel Valley and reported that he had, among 2,000 acres, 400 bearing orange trees, 4,000 ready for that level, 2,000 recently planted; 500 lemons of which 10% were bearing; 135,000 vines from which 100,000 gallons of white wine and 3,000 gallons of brandy were made the previous year; and 350 English walnut trees, generating 25,000 pounds of nuts, along with 120 almonds.
When Independence Day was celebrated in Los Angeles, part of the proceedings took place at the property of the widow of Dr. Thomas Jefferson White, along the Los Angeles River near downtown, and a grandstand was placed under two large willow trees, “and at the head of a broad lane, lined with walnut trees, which leads from the residence to the street.” Guests found places in seats placed in the shade of orange trees.
To the southeast of the city, while the township of Los Nietos (where Downey and nearby cities are now) was called the “Cornfield of the Pacific Coast,” in the News of 2 October, it was reported that, “walnut trees, it is believed, will flourish anywhere as soon as artificial windbreaks in the form of live fences have been cultivated.” Once farmers paid off mortgages, it was added, “it is likely that the land will be devoted to the culture of walnut and other nut trees suitable to the soil and climate.” To the north, in Whittier Narrows, the Temple family raised walnuts on the ranchos La Merced and Potrero de Felipe Lugo before, during and after this period.
The Star of 11 October informed readers “the new walnut crop is just coming to market” and “is pronounced a good one.” When the Southern District Agricultural Association, of which F.P.F. Temple was a founder, held its second annual fair at Agricultural, now Exposition, Park, in early November, Ozro W. Childs had “some marvelous specimens of fruit exhibited,” including walnuts. The Star of the 27th reported,
The walnut crop this winter probably amounts to 60,000 pounds against between forty and fifty thousand pounds last year. Of the present crop about 50,000 pounds have been purchased by [a wholesale merchandising firm in San Francisco] at an average price of ten cents per pound [note Nordhoff’s amount above]. The present crop is lighter per tree than last year, but a number of young trees just coming into bearing more than make up the difference.
Finally, the Christmas Day edition of the paper cited the report of William D. Kelly, a member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, who visited the San Gabriel Valley and remarked on the abundance of crops, including walnuts, and he also described a visit to Sunny Slope. Kelly, however, added that corn and wheat had “no market because there is no railroad on which transportation can be had. He concluded, “until such a thoroughfare shall be constructed, places such as I have referred to must continue to be oases in the desert, and broncos and sheep to be the leading productions of Southern California.”
It wasn’t quite that bad, but Kelly echoed Nordhoff and others that railroads were badly needed to link greater Los Angeles to eastern American markets and that time was soon to come, but let’s press on with this post and get to 1873 to continue our look at the early walnut history in the region.