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Ontario Packing House Interior

A post from the Facebook History of Los Angeles group.

Description:

1905 Packing Oranges 1905 In Ontario.

Photograph of the interior of a citrus packing house in Ontario, ca.1905. Several men man the sorting machine in the foreground which has chutes which spill into bins full of oranges. Several other men are visible standing in the background. A huge stack of orange crates towers over the operation behind. Legible signs include: "Upland Citrus Ass'n, North Ontario, Cal."

Photo: California Historical Society

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Exchange Lemon Products Cans

These are some of the consumer products from the Exchange Lemon Products plant in Corona.

The plant produced other items for the chemical, food processing and agricultural industries.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

John Deere BO Orchard Tractor

A post by Elisabeth Shelton on the Facebook John Deere Number One group.

She comments:

Deere's BR and BO tractors were introduced in 1935 as adaptations of the successful B model. The BR was a standard tractor, while the BO was specifically designed for orchards with features like differential brakes. About 10,000 of these tractors were built, combined, not including those tractors that were converted into Lindeman crawlers.

These versatile tractors could handle various tasks, from plowing and disking to powering other implements. Despite initial power limitations, a 1939 upgrade enhanced performance. The BR and BO remained popular until production ceased in 1947.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

PE 498 At Leffingwell Packing House

Description:

PE 498 Whittier Line End of Leffingwell Branch.

The day is January 7, 1948 and the Railroad Boosters are conducting their 64th fan trip, a tour of the electrified freight only PE La Habra Line to Fullerton and Yorba Linda. Star of the day is the recently modernized Blimp Combo car 498. Here car 498 is seen at the end of the Leffingwell Spur next the ranch's packing house.

Photo by Al Haij from the Jeffrey Moreau Collection at the OERM Archives.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Sunkist Advertisement - "Orange Farmers' Sale"

A post by David Eck.

He comments:

This ad appeared in the Grand Island Independent in Grand Island, Nebraska on Friday, April 19, 1912. The pitch: "One trainload" of oranges is headed to Grand Island with choice oranges from "5,000 prize orange groves" and will be sold at "special prices."

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Model: PFE 46348 (R-40-20)

Dick Harley commented:

The most glaring (to me) inaccurate part of that R-40-20 model is the height of the door.? Among 40-ft PFE ice reefers, only the R-40-23, -24, and -25 classes had 4-ft doors that extended that close to the roof.? That's why I recommend building an R-40-20 model from an R-40-10 model, though the R-40-20 is an inch or two taller.

Less obvious is the welded underframe of an R-40-23 is not the same as the riveted underframe of an R-40-20, -14 or -10.

PFE Icing Platform - Council Bluffs

A post from the Facebook Union Pacific Museum group.

Description:

This photo shows an aerial view of the Council Bluffs Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) ice dock and ice plant on May 28, 1969.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

And one more.

A 1931 view.

Postcard: Glendora Packing House

Postcard was mailed in 1914.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Second 934 was an eastward Third Class freight train out of San Jose and looks like it has reefers for Watsonville Jct. and Salinas.

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Cliff Prather

Discover The Stories Behind The Groves!

A post by Eric Oliphant on Facebook.

He comments:

Join us at Marcy Library on May 14th at 3:00 PM for a fascinating talk on Riverside's citrus history, presented by Citrus State Historic Park. Fun for all ages!

It's a free event. 6927 Magnolia Avenue, Riverside.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

SP Cab Forward 4275 With Reefer Block

A post by Tomas Torres on the Facebook Southern Pacific Prototype Modelers group.

Description:

Between Morgan Hill and San Jose. Early 1950s.

Gene Deimling Collection.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Bruce Hendrick

President, CMRS

A Visit To The Corona Model Railroad Society

Saturday, I traveled to Corona, CA, to visit the Corona Model Railroad Society.

This is a large, HO scale club with a fairly complete model railroad representing Corona, Fullerton and Riverside in 1949.

The emphasis is on Corona and its highly developed citrus industry.

The structures, scenery and trackwork all are first class and many of the structures are replicas of actual buildings from that era.

The club is located in Corona Heritage Park along with an excellent municipal museum. The museum has many citrus industry exhibits, an art gallery, three antique stores and a botanical garden. Admission is free.

Club Website:

On Facebook:

Corona Heritage Park & Museum Website:

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Citrus Memories

A post by Mike Kunert on the Facebook I Remember The Inland Empire group.

He comments:

The latest memory in my developing electric train town I call Sixties is bittersweet, but it deserves to be included.

I still remember the scent—orange blossoms in the spring, sweet and sharp, carried on the wind like a promise. Back in the 1950s and ’60s, the groves were everywhere in the Inland Empire. Grand Terrace, Redlands, Mentone, Riverside… You didn’t need a map—just follow your nose.

My grandfather owned a grove in Grand Terrace during the 1950s, though we didn’t live there. Then in 1960, he moved us out to a grove in Mentone—right on Crafton Avenue. Our house sat next to a giant oil tank that stored fuel for the smudge pots. Every winter, when frost threatened the crop, that oil would be pumped out and burned in rows of metal pots under the trees to keep them warm. The smell of that smoke—heavy, oily, and mixed with citrus—is still with me.

Every two weeks, we irrigated the grove. I can still picture those early mornings—opening the standpipes and watching the water flood down the furrows. That’s when the real work began: chasing the water between the rocks, scrambling to plug the gopher holes that swallowed it up. We didn’t use rags or tricks—we filled those holes with rocks, one by one, trying to force the water to stay where it belonged.

It wasn’t glamorous work, but it was honest. That grove was more than just land—it was our home, our rhythm, our way of life. You could walk out the back door and lose yourself in the rows of trees, each one with its own shadow and sound.

But even then, the groves were disappearing. From the late ’40s to the early ’70s, nearly two-thirds of the Inland Empire’s citrus groves were gone. The bulldozers came. The water still flowed, but the trees were not—replaced by houses, fences, and streets with names that tried to remember what had just been buried.

My grandfather never complained. He just kept tending the trees that were left. “They won’t be here forever,” he’d say. “But we were.”

I don’t drive down Crafton much anymore. But I think of it often—the smell of blossoms, the hiss of irrigation water, the stubborn rocks and gopher holes. And I remember. Because that grove, and that time, still lives in me.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

The "Chinese Pack"

An illustration posted by Michael Bussee.

Description:

A sketch by Tom Young, based on an earlier drawing by Rose Maxwell in the California Citrograph, shows a Chinese worker seated between navel orange trees, carefully wrapping fruit and placing it in a crate. The sketch is from the booklet, A History of Citrus in the Riverside Area, published by the Riverside Municipal Museum, revised edition 1989.

My Notes:

This was a type of packing technique credited to Chinese pickers which resulted in a crate of oranges of different sizes that was tight and stable and could make it to eastern markets in relatively good condition.

But this was a long time ago, before the Chinese were driven from the industry and when a lot of packing was done either in the field or on a depot platform.

Another term for this was the "heavy pack".

As the industry evolved it became standard practice to pack only one size of fruit in a packing crate.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Video: Model PFE Reefer Block

From Brian Moore in Plymouth, England:

Notice the weathering variations on the reefers.

Bob Chaparro

Moderator

Since you brought up the topic of orchard tractors, here's a couple of photos of my McCormick-Deering O-4 Orchard Tractor and John Bean Orchard Sprayer at a show this past summer.? My dad and I just finished restoring the sprayer in the spring of 2024.

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