Growing Tradition
Santa Paula will celebrate its roots at the 33rd edition of its Citrus Festival, slated to begin Friday and last through the weekend at Veterans Memorial Park. The festival will include arts and crafts booths, live music, pony rides, plenty of food, information booths on the citrus industry and a carnival.
Santa Paula, in the Santa Clara River Valley next to Highway 126, is still a small town with a population under 30,000 (just like Ventura 40 years ago). And since it’s in the Sunset Garden Book’s Zone 21 (Southern California’s thermal belts with occasional ocean influences), it’s ideal for growing citrus. The first orange trees were planted on 100 acres in Santa Paula in 1875 by Nathan Blanchard. By 1888, Southern Pacific was shipping Blanchard’s produce to markets in the East.
This was the beginning of the citrus industry in the area. This year’s corporate sponsor of the Citrus Festival is the Limoneira Co., which was incorporated by Blanchard in 1893. These days, agriculture is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in Ventura County, and Santa Paula farmers have more than 34,000 acres in cultivation, producing an average of $6,700 per acre, which is triple the state average.
Over the years, Limoneira has become the state’s leading grower of lemons, producing 751 boxes per acre, which is more than 60% of the state total. Today, the company owns more than 1,300 acres of lemons, 630 acres of avocados, 800 acres of Valencia oranges and 33 acres of mandarin oranges. That’s a lot of vitamin C.
The festival will begin Friday at 4 p.m. and go until 11. Saturday hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday noon until 9 p.m. Providing the soundtrack will be the East Wind Trio, playing Saturday at 1 p.m., and Johnny Jacinto & Friends starting Sunday at 2 p.m.
Proceeds from the event will go to area nonprofit organizations, including the sponsoring Santa Paula Kiwanis Club as well as the Rotary and Optimist clubs. Books of 20 tickets for the carnival are $10 from the Chamber of Commerce (200 N. 10th St.) or $14 at the door.
DETAILS
The 33rd Annual Santa Paula Citrus Festival at Veterans Memorial Park, Ventura and 10th streets, Friday through Sunday; free; 525-9820.
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The 2000 La Fiesta del Triunfo, an annual fund-raiser for the Stagecoach Inn in Newbury Park, will be held Saturday at David Murdock’s Ventura Farms in Thousand Oaks. Murdock will be hosting the event with Robert D. Nesen, the former ambassador to Australia and Nauru. The Don and Dona Triunfo award winners this year are John C. Prescott and Geri Conlan.
Triunfo is the name of a long-ago ranch in the area, and the tradition of the Don and Dona Triunfo awards dates to 1965, when a Spanish ball was held at the Rancho Conejo Airport hangar. Although the venue has changed over the years, the intent has not, which is to raise money for the museum and to honor citizens for their service to the community.
The event will begin at 5 p.m. with a tour of the paddocks, followed by an equestrian demonstration featuring mares and their colts, as well as stallions and show horses from the stable. Cocktails will be served at 6, with bolero music provided by Los Romanticos. Dinner will be served at 7, with the awards ceremony an hour later. Dress should be western.
The Stagecoach Inn--which is Historical Landmark #659, Ventura County Cultural Landmark #30 or Thousand Oaks site #1--has far outlived any other well-known spot in the Conejo Valley. Originally the Grand Union Hotel, a name that probably reflected owner James Hammell’s Civil War sentiments, the structure was built in the Monterey style in 1876 for about $7,200.
The building was touted as a resort in the beginning, but over the years it has been used for a variety of things besides a hotel and a hoped-for stagecoach stop, including a military school for boys, a tearoom, a restaurant and even a movie set for a ‘30s Hoot Gibson western.
When the bumpy section of freeway through Newbury Park was widened in 1965, the building was moved to its current site on Ventu Road a few blocks from the busy 101 freeway and granted landmark status, primarily through the efforts of the Conejo Valley Historical Society. In 1970, a fire of undetermined origin destroyed the building and most of its contents. But with the help of insurance money and community donations, the structure was rebuilt and reopened as a museum in 1976.
These days, the Stagecoach Inn stands as a window to early 1900’s life, with an immaculately preserved interior. The surrounding grounds include all sorts of antique farming implements and three homes from eras that predate the inn--a wooden pioneer house, an adobe structure from the mission era and an Indian hut made of tule reeds. Docent tours of the Stagecoach Inn are available five days a week. To find out more, call 498-9441.
DETAILS
2000 Fiesta del Triunfo at Ventura Farms, 235 W. Potrero Road, Thousand Oaks, Saturday, 5 p.m.; $85; 495-8317.
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Bill Locey can be reached by e-mail at blocey@pacbell.net