Today's image is the cover of a 1932 coloring book from the California Fruit Growers Exchange. The illustration isn't identified as Orange County, but it might as well be. The CFGE created the iconic "Sunkist" brand around 1907, and in 1952 they changed their name to Sunkist Growers, Inc. A marketing powerhouse, the CFGE even made orange juice a standard breakfast drink for most Americans. As Phil Brigandi likes to say, they "could have even taught Walt Disney a thing or two about marketing." (Thanks to Doug McIntosh for the image.).
I recently discovered that KOCE-TV has posted The Story of Orange County on YouTube. This series was created for the County's centennial in 1989, and features an interesting mix of historians and other experts. Here are the segments, in order:
Episode One: "Birth of a County"
- Part 1: With Paul Apodaca, Norman Neuerburg and Harry Francisco
- Part 2: With Bernardo Yorba, Tony Forster, Richard J. O'Neill, Tony Moiso & Florence Mitchell
- Part 3: With Steve Donaldson, Glenn Dumke & Pam Hallan-Gibson
Episode Two: "Dawn of a New Era"
With the snow-capped mountains in the background (specifically, that of San Gorgonio), this looks more like Riverside (birthplace of SoCal's navel orange industry) or Redlands.
ReplyDeletebtw, most of OC orange crop was valencias (juicing) oranges and not the thick-skinned navels that most folks preferred eating.
I would have loved to have seen Orange County when it was more rural and full of oranges. Can you imagine the smell when they were blooming? It must have been heavenly.
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