Verdugo Views

Katherine Yamada

Credit: Courtesy, Special Collections, Glendale Public Library

Caption: The Glendale News printed a special edition in honor of the

city’s incorporation in 1906. It featured a full-page article about

Tropico’s strawberries and included this picture of the Berry Growers of

Tropico and Glendale. A copy of the 1906 edition, donated by Charleston

and Leeta McCoy Dow, now resides in Special Collections.

Ripe, luscious strawberries grown in the fertile Tropico soil brought

fame to this region back in the early 1900s. The first strawberry fields

appeared around 1899 when 2 acres were planted.

Within just a few years, more than 650 acres were under production.

Most of the strawberries were of the Brandywine variety, which growers

preferred because they grew well in the soil. An average of 12,000

baskets were picked per acre per year during the height of the

strawberry-producing years.

A group of 50 growers met at Richardson’s Hall in Tropico in 1904 to

sign articles of incorporation as the Strawberry Growers Assn. Wilmot

Parcher, who served as Glendale’s first mayor and owned 10 acres of fruit

trees and strawberries on Glendale Avenue at Maple, was elected

president. By 1906, those serving on the board of directors were D.

Griswold, Parcher, E.H. Learned, S. Mihara and O. Tomikawa.

The strawberry production was detailed in a story in the Glendale News

that year, indicating that growers expected to plant between 500 and 600

acres. To house the huge volume of strawberries, the association built a

new warehouse on the Pacific Electric Railway. Five cars a day hauled the

berries to market in Los Angeles.

The berries were shipped in refrigerated cars, requiring large

quantities of ice, so they built a large icehouse to do their own icing

instead of having it done in Los Angeles. Most of the berries went to

Arizona, New Mexico and other points outside California.

To avoid glutting the market, surplus strawberries were sent to

canneries, keeping even the price for fresh berries. During the fall and

winter, berries were shipped to Chicago, New York and other Eastern

points for very high prices. Japanese immigrants worked the fields,

planting, tending and picking the strawberries.

The strawberries starred on the cover of an illustrated, paperbound

booklet titled “Tropico Beauty,” published in 1903 by the Tropico

Improvement Assn. Printed in color, the cover showed an upturned basket

of luscious-looking berries, a tribute to the famed strawberries of

Tropico, Glendale and Burbank.

The booklet emphasized that while barley, sheep, alfalfa and dairying,

and grapes, fruits and nuts were paying propositions, strawberries were

now the most important crop. “A strawberry does remarkably well here,”

the booklet said of the Tropico Beauties.

Sadly, just a few years later, the strawberry boom was over. Amid

charges of overproduction, prices dropped sharply, and a few years later,

the strawberry fields were gone forever, giving way to one of the area’s

first housing tracts.

KATHERINE YAMADA is a volunteer with the Special Collections Room at

Central Library. To reach her, leave a message at 637-3241. The Special

Collections Room is open from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturdays or by

appointment. For more information on Glendale’s history, contact the

reference desk at the Central Library at 548-2027.