WHEAT PRODUCTION IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

BUILDING A GREAT MUSEUM FOR THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

When English colonists arrived in the New World, they attempted to bend the farm lands they acquired into a "New England", complete with European crops and animals. It took generations for their descendants to adopt native American species such as potatoes and corn. The results of planting non-native plants still plague us today. Excessive demands for water, fertilizers, and pesticides are results.

The raising of European wheat was introduced into the San Fernando Valley by land investors lead by Isaac Lankershim in the 1870s. Initially, grain production was highly profitable for the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Company/

 Wheat production was romanticized in America as settlers pushed west. This illustration is from an 1890 elementary school reader.  (Gift to The Museum of the San Fernando Valley from Gary Fredburg 2014. - Click on images to enlarge them.)

WHEAT FARMING WAS IMPORTANT IN THE VALLEY IN THE LATE 1800s

BUILDING A GREAT MUSEUM FOR THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

Issac Lankershim and his son in law Issac Van Nuys owned and directed great wheat raising ranches in the San Fernando Valley.

Reaping wheat in early North Hollywood, when it was still called Lankershim. (Click on image to enlarge it.)

Some histories of the San Fernando Valley refer to these workers in the late 1800s as "itinerant farm workers."  Farm workers they were for sure, but the fact that they were necessarily migrant workers is debatable. When the Mission San Fernando Rey de España was secularized, many Tongva Indians were displaced from their homes or barracks. Homeless "Mission Indians" lived where they could, often in shack-like buildings at the edge of washes.
Click on this photograph to get a close up view of these workers.

WHEN THE VALLEY MEANT 'WHEAT"

CHERISHING OUR VALLEY           2012

Lots of people believe that before the great aqueducts were built, the San Fernando Valley was a desert. It's true that our vast Valley has long been an arid place, but it has always had a water supply. And at one time wheat was our most important crop. Agriculture has been part of Valley history. long before imported water.

 Wheat farm in the San Fernando Valley the close of the 19th century.

I. N. Van Nuys lived in this important ranch house, from which wheat production operations formed one of the first great economic engines of the San Fernando Valley. The photo was taken around 1882.

THE GREAT WHEAT FIELDS OF PORTER RANCH

2010 THE YEAR OF VALLEY ADVENTURES Northridge100
Make sure to double click on this great old photograph of Porter Ranch.
Once great wheat fields grained the whole San Fernando Valley. Here, in the late 1880s, the wheat harvest was underway on Porter Ranch