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About this episode

My name is Katherine Thornton and the story I would like to share is about my grandparent's development of their ranch called Howell Heights in Escondido, California, and the big 1913 freeze in Southern California. The following is from the 1953 writings about the Howell family by their son and my uncle, Dean Howell, 5th District North County Supervisor from 1940 to 1960. "My parents, Melville Leven and Caroline Howell moved to California in 1904 after selling our 720 acre farm in Admire, Kansas. We arrived by train: seven children, (Bessie, Murray, Gordon, Dean, Oliver, Dorothy and Melville), all their belongings, two horses, two cows and farm equipment, settling in Rialto, California which was between Colton and Riverside. Father and his three oldest sons farmed in this area for several years and then they went to Winchester (near Hemet) and developed wells of water. Melville, Caroline and their four youngest children drove down to Oceanside and scouted the coast and into some of the inland valleys for short distances, but they were not satisfied with what they saw as a future home. After driving through Vista on a winding, narrow wagon road, they first saw Escondido on April 5, 1910. Vista was only green rolling hills, no town, only the Santa Fe Depot, several big hay and grain warehouses, a general merchandise store and a few scattered farm houses. Early the next morning, father went on an exploration of Escondido on foot. About 7 AM, he returned to the hotel and his first enthusiastic statement was, "Well, Caddie, I have discovered our future home site." We all went out on Grand Avenue and looked westward and he pointed out the hill which would become our ranch and home...Howell Heights. We walked down the muddy street of Grand Avenue and up to the top of the hill, where views east were of Palomar and Cuyamaca mountains which were covered with snow. Everything was lush and green, little wildflowers were springing up and the Escondido Creek was running bank full. Grandfather bought a total of 180 acres. In the fall and winter of 1910 and 1911, we started clearing the hill of sagebrush and hauling off small rock outcroppings, hauling them to the well drilling operation, which was in progress in the Escondido Creek bed, west of the hill. A road was made on the west side of the hill, using an obsolete two-horse grader borrowed from the city. Thirteen wells were drilled a depth of 40 feet, they were connected together with suction lines, and 30 inches of water was developed, enough to adequately take care of the ranch needs for decades. While the wells were being drilled, a main pipeline was being laid from the plant to the top of the hill, a distance of one-half mile and a 200 foot line above the wells. This ditch line and additional lateral lines, approximately one additional mile, was dug by hand with pick and shovel by my brothers, Gordon, Murray and myself. Because of the purchase of the land, a new $2,000 Cadillac and eleven to feed, three times a day (two teen age cousins were added to our family), finances had taken its toll, but best of all was our health, strength, vision, love, goodwill and enthusiasm to pioneer...the fifth time for my parents. Father built a large tent house which would be our home for the next 7 years. It was 36 x 40, a regular floor and on it a frame to support the large new tent with doors and windows framed and placed and a shook roof. A connecting smaller tent was used as the kitchen and dining room. Mother and my sister Bessie prepared thirty-three meals daily, seven beds had to be made up, plus the laundry, gardening, care of farm animals and other daily chores. We all loved each other and the hard work and we made wonderful progress. Grandmother's motto was, "Diligent in business, fervent in Spirit, serving the Lord." After the land was plowed, smoothed by dragging a heavy wood float drawn by four horses and the contouring of the hill was completed, 70 acres of the land was planted. Two hundred thousand citrus seedlings, one foot apart in rows, which were in turn four feet apart. These little plants were irrigated regularly and when the next spring came it was time to bud them with bud stock of navel orange, Valencia orange, grapefruit, Villa Franka and Eureka lemon. The bud stock was carefully selected from good producing groves in the valley. The Eddy brothers, who were experts at budding, were called in to do the job. The trees were pruned, painted with shellac to prevent bleeding. Raffia was tied to keep them growing straight. At 30 inches tall, the trees were topped at the bud so that they would head out and begin to properly develop limbs for the tree. The little trees grew to the right size for selling in three years and my father contracted to sell thirty thousand of them for delivery in the spring of 1913 to a Los Angeles banker who was going to plant them in Corona. These were the first of the trees to be sold and after three years of painstaking and hard labor by all of our family, we looked forward to a great day, thirty thousand trees, thirty thousand dollars, we would be on "easy street." However, the Divine Plan was not so, as that was the winter of the "great freeze" and all or nearly so, of our two hundred thousand trees were frozen back to the original root stock. Instead of being able to deliver the thirty thousand trees at one dollar each, we began to search all over Southern California nurseries to find trees that we might buy in order to fulfill our contract, but all were frozen. Then worst of all, because we could not deliver, the banker sued my father for thirty thousand dollars. The trial date came in Superior Court in San Diego and all expert testimony proved there were no nursery trees anywhere. The judge gave judgment in the sum of three thousand dollars because of a technicality in the contract; a simple one written in long hand on a plain piece of paper on the dining room table in the tent house and signed by my father and the banker. The technicality was the omission of the phrase "Act of God preventing..." Three thousand dollars was as bad as thirty thousand, but father had a good friend, Mr. Conway, who loaned him the money to pay for judgment. The family was successful in the citrus business, providing many nursery stock trees that were for years on the hillsides around Escondido, Vista, Fallbrook, the coastal communities and the Riverside area. In 1950, my brothers and sister decided to subdivide the property into view lots to be used for homes, and the entire property was completely sold by 1965."

• Release Date

  Jul 13, 2008

• Runtime

  06:01