The Packing Houses

Grower Associations/Cooperative

With the rise of marketing cooperatives like the California Fruit Growers Exchange (later known as Sunkist), growers joined forces to pack and market their fruit collectively. These associations operated packinghouses, often owned by the cooperative or its local branches, such as Queen Colony Fruit Exchange and Corona Foothill Lemon Company. If you want to learn more, Read about the Citrus Unions.

Growers delivered their fruit to these facilities, where association-employed workers (not the growers themselves) would sort, grade, label, and pack the fruit into the branded boxes.

Independent Packers

Some larger or more established growers, such as W.H. Jameson, continued to use their own private packinghouses often remaining outside of the cooperative system. Private packing companies also existed independently and offered contract packing services to multiple growers.

In The Beginning

The first carload of citrus shipped from South Riverside were oranges in 1893, grown by George L. Joy, A.S. Fraser, and N.C. Hudson. No packinghouses existed at this time, so the fruit was packed either in the fields or at the railroad station. Eventually, too many oranges were harvested to pack outside and ranchers decided to start building packing houses. The majority of packing houses were conveniently constructed next to the railroad tracks. Each packinghouse would begin to use their own unique fruit labels.

Sunset Packinghouse

The city's first packinghouse was the Sunset Packinghouse, was designed in 1894 by Leo Kroonen, whose personal artifacts are now displayed at the Heritage Park museum. The facility was 40,000 square feet. It was owned by George Brown, Frank Scoville, and T.P. Drinkwater. As the industry grew, several competing companies began purchasing fruit directly from local growers and shipping it to wholesale markets. The need for a more efficient and profitable marketing strategy led to the formation of the Queen Colony Fruit Exchange.

The Queen Colony Fruit Exchange was founded in 1897 and later renamed the Corona Citrus Association in 1905. As the cooperative expanded, it aimed to centralize its operations. In 1910, the association purchased the Sunset Packinghouse for $9,000.

Tragedy struck in 1945 when the packinghouse burned down. Due to wartime material shortages, reconstruction was delayed until 1947. Jameson’s Orange Heights, Call Estate, and Foothill (all neighboring citrus companies) came to the rescue, generously allowing the use of their facilities to keep operations going. The rebuilt Sunset Packinghouse was later renamed Corona College Heights and continued under the Sunkist brand until the association eventually relocated its packing operations to Riverside in 1964.

Today, the 1947 packinghouse remains as one of the only buildings left of Corona's great citrus empire. It stands at N. Sheridan St. and the Santa Fe Railroad. Several businesses currently occupy the space: MAVTV, Lucas Class Oil, and Fate Party Rentals.

Jameson Packinghouse

W.H. Jameson came to South Riverside in 1887. By 1894, he had planted Southland Ranch between Buena Vista Ave. and Taylor Ave. It was 350 acres of citrus, half oranges and half lemons. The Jameson family would later purchase the Eastland Ranch from the Corona Lemon Company.

The Jameson Packinghouse would be built across the railroad tracks from the Sunset Packinghouse in 1898. At nearly 11,000 square feet, it was almost three times the size of the original Sunset facility at the time. It became a major employer in the area, with a workforce of 200 at its peak. Jameson also packed fruit for the famous Lemonia grove.

W.H. Jameson died in 1912 and the ranch was taken over by his son Joy Jameson. He managed more than 600 acres of citrus orchards and served as president of the Queen Colony Fruit Exchange, Lemon Men's Club, and the Exchange Lemon Products, as well as director of the California Fruit Growers Exchange. The Jameson family would also develop property bewteen Garretson Ave. and Main St. in 1937, eventually come to be known as Crown Ranch, growing the Jameson properties to over 600 acres. Joy Jameson died in 1955

The Jameson Packinghouse eventually closed in 1963. One source claims the building was demolished for its lumber in 1963. Others claim, after a fire in 1974, it was torn down in 1975.

Summary

1898 - W.H. Jameson Company Packing house is built
1955 - Jameson becomes Corona Citrus Association?
1963 - Packing house closes

Thieme Lemon Products

Oscar Theime came to South Riverside in 1893 and purchased 27 acres of land between Lester Ave. and Chase Dr. He built the Orange Heights Packinghouse in 1898, the same year as W.H. Jameson. The Theime family would ultimately return to home to Germany and the property was pruchased by W.H. Jameson in 1906. The Jameson family converted the Theime lemon storage building into a vacation home, which remains to this day.

Lemonia Grove Historical Marker

Corona Packing Company

Details to come soon!

Summary

1900s - Corona Packing Company
????? - Randolph Fruit Company
1920s - Riverside County Select Groves
1940s - Corona Mutual Groves

Boston and South Riverside Fruit Company

The Boston and South Riverside Company had a packinghouse. It would eventually be owned by Foothill.

More details to come soon!

Flagler Fruit Company

J.H. Flagler was a wealthy entrepreneur from New York. He purchased the El Cerrito Ranch and is known for bringing a flamboyant style to the local citrus industry. El Cerrito Ranch was originally planted by R.B. Taylor and sold to Baroness Hickey (Flagler's daughter) in 1896. There were 156 acres of orange and lemon trees near the east end of Chase Dr. and, by 1898, J.H. Flagler had established a packing house between Joy St. and Pearl St. As of 1908, it was managed by John P. Triolo and known to yield the highest grade of oranges.

In 1921, the newly-named Exchange Lemon Products converted the old Flagler Fruit Co. packinghouse into an efficient processing plant and more than 600 tons of surplus (poor grade) lemons were processed daily. By 1934, an average of 20% of lemons grown were sent to the by-products plant. In 1959, the name is changed to "Lemon Products Division of Sunkist Growers, Inc."

Chase Plantation

Ethan Allen Chase moved from New York to Riverside sometime around 1891 and purchased 1,200 acres in the area eventually to be named Perris, CA. He was quite the hortoculturist and would go on to form the National Orange Company in 1901, eventually to become one of the largest citrus packing houses in the world. Two of his sons, Frank F. Chase and Harry B. Chase were quite involved in the citrus business as well. Between 1901-1908, the Chase family became increasingly involved in the water industry, particularly in working with the Temescal Water Company of Corona to bring water from their town of Ethanac to Corona. In that time, the Chase Plantation would be formed. This plantation was the first ranch to maintain a resident workforce where workers lived in barracks-style housing.

The Chase location is still referred to as Chase Plantation. The original packinghouse was located off Foothill Road, where the Santiago High School athletic field is currently located. Chase Plantation was sold in 1913 due to financial difficulties and was later procured by American Fruit Growers, Inc. E.A. Chase died in 1921. The packinghouse would continue to be used by American Fruit Growers, Inc.

The Town of Ethanac
History of Canyon Lake
Ethan A. Chase

Call Fruit Company

Corona Foothill Lemon Company

Samuel B. Hampton established the Corona Lemon Foothill Company in 1911 with a group of investors. It very quickly became the largest citrus ranch in Corona's history and the original plantings encompassed 900 acres. Foothill Ranch was essentially a plantation, complete with headquarters, housing, stores, schools, and recreation.

Corona Lemon Company

The Corona Lemon Company had 160 acres of lemon trees. They would eventually sell the Eastland Ranch to the Jameson family.

More details to come soon!

Orange Heights Orange Association

In 1892, a new pipeline opened up 2,000 acres of land known as Orange Heights and, by 1893, the land had been filled with orange and lemon groves.

Briggs, Spence & Company
Spence Fruit Company

There are seemingly two different Spence packers tied to local citrus history: Spence of Aliso - Partnered with Briggs (ca. 1895) and Spence of Monrovia - Created the Spence Fruit Company (ca. 1912).

Where does Spence get involved with Corona? This is where the research gets a little bit weird.

In the early-1900s, independent packing and shipping companies were emerging throughout southern California. The California Citrus Union was connected throughout the state, predominantly in Riverside county, and would have packers in Corona locations on several occasions.

Sparr Fruit Company

In 1911, Sanborn maps show a packing house east of Main Street, south of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway line but without a name or railroad spur. This was most likely Sparr Fruit Company's new packinghouse under construction. By 1928 maps, it was identified as the Sparr Fruit Co. A lot of info on Sparr seems to have vanished over time, leaving its citrus labels up to much question when and where they were used, including if they were actually made in Corona.

Certainly, many labels did make it through Corona, we are just not sure which ones! There were multiple locations associated with the company but, with the exception of Corona, some may have been merely office locations rather than packinghouse locations.