LAST WORD

CITRUS

CENTRAL

Then and Now

Restored and opened in 2014, the Packing House is the crown jewel of the Anaheim Packing District and the city’s revitalized downtown. Now a two-story gourmet food hall with a smorgasbord of diverse cuisines, the century-old iconic building and landmark is one of the few remaining packing houses that hearken back to the county’s agricultural history.

From the 1890s until the 1950s, money literally grew on trees in Orange County. The dominant crop in the area was citrus fruits, specifi cally oranges (hence the county’s name). Constructed in 1919, the Packing House building processed the fruits for Sunkist, and was one of more than 45 packing houses in the county. At the industry’s acreage peak in 1948, more than 67,000 acres of Valencia orange trees—more than 5 million of them!—blossomed in groves throughout central Orange County. While today the area’s once-thriving citrus industry is only a memory, buildings like the Packing House serve as reminders of the county’s literal roots.

Anaheim citrus groves, circa 1930.