Orange Grove Target Practice

From guest blogger Virginia Sholin Smallwood, our cousin on the Page side of things......

Here is another photo [see below] from the Darrow clan that shows Clyde Herbert Darrow and his son, Fred, having a little target practice in Clyde's orange grove in San Bernardino County. By the way, this picture is uncropped so you can see the orange grove, but you might want to also crop a copy for a closer view.

Oranges were very important in the history of California. After the Transcontinental Railroad was built, along with other railroad lines through the west, the big railroad companies were looking for ways to increase ridership and thereby create some profits. This was towards the end of the 19th century. The companies advertised heavily in the east and midwest about sunny California, where land could be purchased cheaply, and crops, such as oranges, could be grown and easily marketed.

In those days, oranges were a rare treat. In fact, I remember from my own childhood, that it was fun to find an orange or tangerine in one's Christmas stocking. Okay, I don't date back to the end of the 19th century, but this attitude was still hanging on in the early 1950s. Anyway, before the 20th century, there were many people in the U.S. who had never even tasted an orange. The railroads not only took people to California to farm, but provided a way to market their produce to the rest of the country, especially after the advent of refrigerated boxcars. What would have taken months to distribute to the east now took days, and people all over the country learned the pleasure of eating oranges.

So our own Clyde Darrow took the plunge and bought land one mile east of Bloomington in San Bernardino County on which he grew oranges, peaches and apricots. He had moved to Rialto in the same county in 1887, and before 1903, was working his farm near Bloomington. The 1910 census shows that Clyde Darrow was an orange farmer there.

Best regards,
Virginia