by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Once Charles C. Chapman took possession of what he called the Santa Ysabel Ranch near Fullerton and Placentia in north Orange County, part of a group of properties he and brother Frank acquired from Frederick Rohrer in 1894 shortly after arriving from Chicago, he wasted no time in converting the property from general farming into an orange orchard.
He went far further than that, however, establishing a system for raising the golden fruit that soon made him the “orange king” because of the methods employed to maximize the quality of the fruit and, therefore, his profits as he became a multi-millionaire and, consequently, one of the most prominent people in the county named for the fruit he so conspicuously made renowned through the country.
Within several years of establishing his enterprise, Chapman, who had a gift for oratory, was delivering papers at farmers institutes and imparting his knowledge of the citrus industry. The 11 August 1898 edition of the Anaheim Gazette reprinted one of these, presented in Fullerton, and the grower remarked,
The culture of the orange and the lemon is one of the most fascinating and at the same time, one of the most discouraging branches of agriculture, these fruits doubtless requiring more intelligence, closer and more constant attention than any other fruit grown for profit in this country. This is accounted for in part by the great length of time required to mature them, the numerous and persistent enemies which prey upon them, their delicate and susceptible nature, the large money value represented and the natural interest arising from watching the ever-present phenomena incident to their development to a high state of beauty, succulency and usefulness.
After delving into some history of the fruit, including its introduction into California by Spanish missionaries, and varieties, during which Chapman lamented the tendency of some shippers to send oranges out before they were fully ripe, he went into aspects of orchard management, which an emphasis on grove cultivation.
This, he insisted, “will unquestionably produce a smoother orange, with more syrup and better flavor,” while “vigorous cultivation” would lead to better yields with his mantra being “cultivate often, cultivate deep, cultivate at the proper time after irrigation.” Another focus was on proper pruning, while an examination of numerous pests was also undertaken, while he also counseled a judicious application of fertilizer, with operations on Santa Ysabel using a mix of commercial product, bone meal, lime, ashes, sheep fertilizer and barnyard manure.
Obviously, irrigation was central, particularly with deep watering that avoided too much evaporation, and Chapman advised not to wait until the trees needed the vital fluid, but to supply water prior to that situation. Addressing the question of market gluts, the grower countered that, while this was often the case, there was always enough room for the highest quality product. This, of course, also entailed better prices and higher profits and he observed that “I do not believe it is possible for California to overstock the market with fancy [best grade] fruit.”
Informing the audience that he approached his research four years ago as a novice and came to the conclusion that there were three core issues for citrus growers. The first was that they “must grow better fruit” of “the best varieties” as well as “cleaner, smoother and more luscious that most fruit.” Next, handling was critical so that fruit “must be more carefully taken from the trees” and not when too green or overripe, and cared for as if they were eggs, with even more consideration at the packing house. Third, better methods meaning more fruit meant a lower price per unit (say, a box).
What Chapman added was that,
I thought I saw ample room, however, for improvement in the first two conditions, and also believed that oranges could be profitably produced and placed in the market at prices that would insure their consumption.
California had much room for improvement in quality, leading the orchardist to note that “in natural conditions we are as favorably situated for growing fancy oranges as the farmers in [Illinois and Iowa] are for raising fine [live]stock,” while he commented that “ignorance, indifference and willful carelessness combined of many growers is [are] a heavy tax upon the rest.”
Chapman also recommended either cutting down old or chronically poorly producing trees or budding better varieties to them, applying the law of the survival of the fittest. Allowing for inferior stock to proliferate or to be lax when it came to allowing for scale to develop on trees was a problem for the entire industry. After proudly remarking that the highest prices for citrus came from local groves, he concluded, “Orange county can stand first in orange culture if it will.”
In January 1899, Chapman lectured on fertilizer and, in April, gave a similar, exhaustive treatment as in Fullerton at the University Farmers’ Institute at Villa Park. He would go on to regularly present his findings, knowledge and results to grower gatherings in subsequent years, while also being an orator at Memorial Day observances as well as at religious conferences, particularly those involving his denomination of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ.) He also expanded in these early years into mining and oil, though not apparently with much initial success, while he and Frank experimented with commercially raising Belgian hares.
Chapman joined the Anaheim Union Water Company, the biggest supplier in the area, as a director in early 1899, became its biggest shareholder and president, while also wielding much influence in its operations over the years. At one point, with oil production becoming a bigger matter in northeastern Orange County, he lobbied heavily for a separation of stock based on those properties dealing with oil as opposed to water (he obviously did not believe the two financially mixed), though was unsuccessful for years with his arguments.
By the early 20th century, Chapman expanded his holdings significantly, acquiring the 275-acre Jonathan Kraemer (that family, intermarried with the Yorba clan, had large properties in the Placentia area) from Joseph Mesmer in 1901, bought two more Placentia ranches of 50 acres the following year, and, when John K. Tuffree announced the townsite of Borromeo (named for his Peruvian wife’s maiden name) and had an auction of lots, Chapman was a buyer, though the project was pulled. With his 30 acres, however, called the Borromeo ranch, planted to oranges, Chapman continued his rise in the Orange County citrus realm.
In fall 1902 and a year later, there were reports of Chapman’s oranges, including the “Old Mission” brand of fancy fruit, fetching record prices at the market in New York City and the grower continued to lecture on varieties, marketing and other related topics as his fame and fortune continued to grow locally, regionally and nationally. As his wealth and influence grew, this was reflected in his involvement in Fullerton, founded during the Boom of the 1880s when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad built a line through the region.
For example, in March 1901, he swore out a complaint against so-called clubs that served alcohol in Fullerton (this was an issue faced by Charles P. Temple at his La Paloma Club in the Old Mission community of Whittier Narrows during that time) as the Gazette of the 28th observed that he “is determined along with the other respectable portion of the community to rid the town of its deadfalls.”
Chapman was a director of the Bank of Fullerton, renamed the First National Bank of Fullerton at the dawn of the century, and was a prime mover in the founding of the Fullerton Hospital in fall 1902 with the institution opening not quite a year later. When the town incorporated, Chapman was elected to the Board of Trustees and was the first mayor, with the Gazette of 28 January 1904 remarking that,
Extra dry is the manner in which the newly elected board of the trustees of the town of Fullerton is regarded, and it is said there will, as soon as the board assumes the reins of municipal government, be absolutely no wetting of the whistle of [alcohol] commerce in the new city . . . Fullerton starts in with a territorial area of some twenty square miles, containing as it does some of the richest orchard land to be found in the state. It is a progressive and sightly young town, and with these men at its head ought to forge rapidly to the front.
In 1905, Chapman bought the interests of the president of the State Bank of Fullerton and thereby assumed the chief executive position of that institution, while the Gazette of 28 December informed readers that “Andrew Carnegie,” the powerful magnate of U.S. Steel who began an endowment program across the country, “has through the influence of C.C. Chapman and the city trustees announced his willingness to appropriate $7,000 for the erection of a library building,” so long as a free site was obtained and a commitment for at least $750 annually in operating expenses was procured. Fullerton’s Carnegie Library existed until 1941.
After residing in Los Angeles for about a decade, the Chapmans, in 1904, completed a substantial house on the Santa Ysabel ranch, specifically at the northeast corner of today’s State College Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue. Something of a housewarming was held on 28 April at which Charles and Clara were “at home to their Fullerton friends . . . in their newly completed residence.”
The 21 September 1905 edition of the Anaheim paper staunchly defended Chapman against those who called him “czar, and king” of the Fullerton/Placentia area or citing an arrest after a complaint about him appropriating dirt for a road project, although the judge excoriated the complainant for a malicious and unjust action, as the Gazette exhorted,
So far from being a bad man, we know him to be a good man, one of the best in the state of California—we wish we had a score [20] like him in Anaheim . . . He did more for incorporation, and is doing more for Fullerton, than any other man in it . . . He has set them an excellent example.
Just before Christmas 1906, Chapman provided a corner lot on Spadra Road [Harbor Boulevard] and Wilshire Avenue in downtown Fullerton for the future First Christian Church, of which he was a founding trustee. It took several years for the funds to be raised, but the cornerstone was laid at the end of September 1910 and the edifice was dedicated in late April of the following year—the church is still on that corner, though in a later building.
While Chapman sold his stock and relinquished the presidency in 1907 of the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank of Fullerton (not the institution that is in downtown today), he became a trustee of the Placentia National Bank when it was founded at the end of 1910. Among his other business endeavors late in the first decade of the 20th century was the Kelso Mining and Milling Company, which worked mines in what is now a ghost town in San Bernardino County between interstates 15 and 40.
During this period, Chapman also became more involved in civic work, including service on the Orange County Highway Commission as automobiles were becoming increasingly more common (he had them, while also employing a chauffeur). He was also appointed to a Tricounty Reforestation Association for Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties for the purpose of reviving forests in the San Bernardino Mountains that were rapidly being denuded. Chapman was also appointed a trustee of the San Diego Normal School for teacher education (this evolved into San Diego State University) by Governor James Gillett.
This latter, of course, was a patronage position because of the increasing presence Chapman had in the Republican Party. In 1908, he traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby for higher tariffs to protect his and other agricultural interests from foreign competition—the argument being, as usual, that cheap labor in other countries undercut American farmers and growers. Two years later, Chapman’s name was floated as a possible candidate for a seat in the House of Representatives, though nothing materialized.
By 1910, Chapman continued to solidify his standing in the citriculture community, with frequent reports on the prices his oranges fetched per box in the market, further reprinting of statements and papers of his about the industry, including his continued warnings about product quality, and more. He also expanded his operations, which previously included lemons and walnuts, to casaba melons.
When the Santa Fe built its rail line west through Santa Ana Canyon, the route veered sharply to the southwest about where Orangethorpe Avenue meets Van Buren Street in Placentia as it connected to Orange and then returned to the northwest to reach Fullerton. A cutoff was finally constructed in 1910 to bridge the gap with the Santa Ana Register of 23 July remarking,
Fruit shippers estimate that in excess of 800 cars of oranges will be shipped from the Placentia district over the new Fullerton-Richfield cut off during the coming year. To handle this enormous business, six new packing houses will soon be under construction at Placentia . . . C.C. Chapman, who has been sending his [Old] Mission brand oranges from the local depot, will ship from a packing house on the Santa Ysabel ranch, through which the road runs [less than a half-mile from his residence].
The 20 May 1909 edition of the Gazette featured the Santa Ysabel, which it called “the most famous orange ranch in California” and which, it was asserted, was “perhaps visited by more people who are interested in the culture of the orange than any other in California, and is likewise more talked about than any other.” It was added that the tract covered 280 acres devoted also to apricots and walnuts in what “is conceded to be one of the most fertile agricultural sections of Southern California.”
The piece went on that “here have been grown for ten years oranges which have sold at the highest prices of any in the world” and “this alone is a distinction which would also give Mr. Chapman a name second to none among growers and shippers.” Given his reputation and standing nationwide, the Gazette gushed “we therefore have a certain local pride in both the ranch and its owner, and take special pleasure” in highlighting them.
It was noted, though, that, when Chapman acquired Santa Ysabel in 1894, “it was a discouraging proposition he had to face” as “there was no special demand for” the Valencia variety planted there. As he was sure that there was “its superior quality,” the novice orchardist “determined to bring it to the attention of the eastern fruit trade,” but found no interest in his former hometown of Chicago. He was able to make a connection in New York City, however, and the same house, P. Ruhlman and Company, continued to be the agent for Chapman’s Old Mission brand.
There were other varieties, including the Washington navel, Malta Blood, Mediterranean Sweet and the St. Michael, so that Chapman could ship fruit ten months of the year, from January to November and this practice was followed by other growers and “has proven highly beneficial to the industry.”
We are going to pause at 1910 and return with part four, carrying this look at some of Chapman’s remarkable history into the Teens, so be sure to check back for that!