Roundup: May 8, 2013

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA
Social Hour: 5:00PM
Dinner: 6:00PM

Speaker: Joseph Feeney
Subject: “The Second Gold Rush”

The history of Southern California cannot be fully understood without referencing the Citrus industry and the monumental impact it had on this area. In his presentation, Joe will cover the citrus industry from the first groves at the San Gabriel mission to the development of a multibillion-dollar agricultural empire. The history of this transition is not dull to say the least. The first railroad car of oranges left California in 1877, within thirty years there were over 100,000 acres of oranges planted in California, most in Southern California. Joe’s talk will cover the economic and agricultural development of the industry: including, dollar volume, grove size, cost per acre, development of growers co-ops, transportation development and cost, and the reasons for the dominance of the navel orange. All this will be accompanied by pictures of the facilities, groves, and people who are the focus of the talk. Joe will also follow an orange from the tree to the market place to help the audience integrate all the facts and figures into a comprehensive picture. Joe will address the marketing aspects of the industry using the crate label as the focal point. The presentation features many slides of labels from Southern California.

Joseph Feeney is a native of Southern California with a life-long love for Southern California history. Joe has always understood that history is made by people first, and that the historical facts are the result of human actions. He has served as a board member of the Campo de Cahuenga for twenty years, a Huntington Westerner for twenty-five years, and was vice-president of the civil War Roundtable of Baton Rouge while he attended LSU to earn his Masters degree in Political Science in 2003. Joe has been a collector of citrus labels for over thirty years. His collecting interest grew into a desire to understand the industry that fashioned the need for the creation of over a billion labels.