By the late 1970s, it was getting tougher to find remnants from southern California’s citrus industry that was so instrumental in the area’s growth in the 20th Century. And that caused me to pause as I was heading to San Timoteo Canyon to photograph the Southern Pacific Railroad when I passed the Valdora Produce Company’s packing house at the corner of Barton Road and California Street near Redlands. Not only were they still open for business, but there were a pair of squeaky-clean mid-60s-era mechanical refrigerator cars parked there as well – and some orange trees and snow-capped mountains, too! This was a scene from the past, and I knew it might not last much longer. Before long, it turned out, citrus groves, packing houses and even the once ubiquitous PFE and Santa Fe reefers were gone. Today, on this corner stands an ARCO gas station, surely a current icon of automobile-centric southern California as it exists now. (Bryn Mawr, California – January 31, 1978)
