| Ken Parks Remembers Packing Houses Ken says he was raised just west of Santa Paula and attended Briggs Elementary school in the 1950's and early 1960's, located 7 miles west of town. He remembers some great modeling information, so pay attention! "The school was surrounded by lemon and orange orchards. The school bus Ride was an agricultural tour, twice a day. Some years the route toured the Limonera company town. Some years the outlying labor 'camps,' sometimes both. Since the school district was almost 100% rural most of my schoolmates were from the 'ranches.' Like most of my high school peers manual labor was the source for spending money. I picked fruit, sprayed weeds, refilled 'smudge pots,' all the fun stuff. As the lemons and oranges were picked (by hand) they were put in sturdy wooden 'orchard boxes' provided by the packing house > These were different from the retail 'crates.'. Any Packing House scene should include lots of these. I remember them stacked all over the place, full ones waiting, empties headed back to the orchards, and huge stacks of empties during the off season. They were are about 24" long by 12' wide and 12" deep. Each end was a single piece of ¾" wood, approximately 12" x 12". The sides and bottom were ¼" x 6" slats butted together (no gap). Seems like the wood was always weathered to a grayish dark brown. The orchard boxes were picked up from the rows of the orchard by a 1.5 ton flatbed trucks and driven to the packing house. Each packing house had a fleet of 1.5 ton flat beds. Of course my most vivid recollection are the dark green '52, '53, '54 Chevy's and GMC's the Briggs Lemon Assn. used. At the packing house dock men with hand trucks (oak frame, steel wheels and parts) moved the full boxes from the trucks to the production line and reloaded the truck with empties. The production line cleaned, sorted, and "packed" the fruit into the familiar wood fruit crates (later on cardboard boxes) for wholesale distribution. Note: not all fruit was retail quality, varying percentages went to juice, trash, etc. My favorite memory is the men loading the 40' pre-cooled ice bunker PFE cars. During the picking season cars would be spotted two or three strings 'deep.' Steel plate ramps bridged from the loading dock to the cars in the first string and additional ramps bridged from there to the cars in the second and third string out. Men with the oak and steel hand trucks carried full height stacks (one stack at a time) of wholesale crates from the dock into the cars. Don't forget the sounds. Like any factory in season the packing houses produced constant machinery noise and the rumbling of the steel wheeled hand trucks traveling across the wood decking and steel ramps. And train sounds! I remember mostly SD9's, GP9's, SW9's." Back to Packing House Model |
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