Produce

Last week, we established the architectual relevance of the Sunset Ranch Market area and how it refers back to the old Farmers Market of the 1930's. There's another reference beyond just the architecture to the Farmers Markets off to the side that you may have overlooked or simply not "put two and two together", so to speak.

Last week, we established the architectual relevance of the Sunset Ranch Market area and how it refers back to the old Farmers Market of the 1930's. There's another reference beyond just the architecture to the Farmers Markets off to the side that you may have overlooked or simply not "put two and two together", so to speak.

 

The truck is hauling boxes of fresh produce ready to sell to consumers, direct from the farms at which they grew. Each of the crates is stamped with the logos of the farms that produced the various fruits and vegetables. Believe it or not, the labels here aren't fictitous companies made up by Disney. These were real farms in Southern California. The Morjon Apples company was based in the San Francisco area of California and would be distributing farm apples from the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville, Sonoma Valley region near Sebastopol, near Yucaipa and Redlands in Southern California and from Various brokers and growers operating in the central valley.

So why all of the colorful labels? Colorful paper labels have been used to identify products since the early 1880s. Introduced to America by European artists, this printing process became known as lithography, the first commercial art. Orchard owners used this new concept of lithography to bring attention to their fruit.

 

There are also some labels closer to the path to Rock 'n Roller Coaster for many of these same brands posted to a wall, with the intention to draw more attention to a potential buyer to a particular brand. The boxes of fruit reinforce the overall theme of being in a real farmer's market in the 1930's and 40's in a time when the area where Disneyland and the rest of Orange County were mostly comprised of farmland.

Here are some other companies we were able to track down:

  • Sanclar Pears: Sweetbrier Orchards, San Jose, CA, 1930's
  • Solid Gold Brand Oranges: Exeter, California, 1930's
  • Cheerio Brand California Vegetables, Salinas, California, 1930's
  • Sebastopol Queen – California Apples, 1930's