Fillmore Historical Museum

05/27/2026

The system w was repaired last night. We will open late today at 11.

Hate to tell you this but the Museum will be closed indefinitely due to plumbing issues.

05/23/2026

From the archives in honor of Memorial Day.

Painter James

The April 14, 1944 headline in the Fillmore Herald reads “Thirty-Three Cadets Are Entertained Here During Easter.” Air cadets in training in Lancaster, far from home over the holiday spent a weekend at the homes of generous local citizens. Fillmore families adopted them for the weekend. They were entertained with an open house, the key to the city, a house party and dance at Camulos. Church services and a round of informal activities including picnics, horseback riding, and swimming filled the rest of the weekend.

Mr. A. H. James, known as Painter James, was the guiding spirit behind these activities. He worked with the commandant of Mira Loma Airbase to bring the cadets to town. The cadets arrived at the depot (now part of the Fillmore Historical Museum) and were picked up by the host families. They were welcomed by families by the name of Peyton, Haase, Brown, Mc Kim, Smith, Rubel, and many others including of course James. Many of these names we still recognize.

Mr. James repeated this act of kindness toward our servicemen and women several times. The Easter 1944 celebration was the tenth such event that Painter James organized. At a similar Christmas visit for 55 air cadets and 5 WAVES, a letter from home was presented to each visitor as part of the festivities. Other groups came from Oxnard, Santa Ana, Taft, and Santa Barbara. Twelve hundred cadets were invited to Fillmore in this one year. James arranged for transportation, entertainment, and sleeping quarters for all of the visiting guests. He also organized wheelchair basketball games for wounded veterans from Birmingham Hospital in Van Nuys.

Mr. James was born in Greenfield, Iowa in in 1892, married Lillian Hilbert in 1917, and died in 1970. Coming to Fillmore from Colorado he ran a painting and decorating business and was known to the community as “Painter.” He had three surviving sons who survived to adulthood. His son Robert, a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corp, was killed in the Philippines in 1942.
The Fillmore Historical Museum is especially grateful for another enormous project that Mr. James created during the war years. He collected over 1200 photos of Fillmore World War II servicemen. Part of the collection was put into albums and was on display in town. Others were framed and displayed upstairs at Briggs Hardware store where the Veterans of Foreign Wars used to meet. Later they were housed in the local Memorial Building along with other mementos. They now hang in the Bunkhouse at the Museum. This collection has over 300 photos; a few of the photos are still unidentified. Frank Erskine added names to most of the photos. Some also display a star. A gold stars signify that the veteran was killed, silver indicates a prisoner of war, and red is for the wounded. Currently nineteen (19) of the photographs are unidentified. You can view their photographs at https://www.fillmorehistoricalmuseum.org/unidentified-wwii-f . If anyone can help us identify these men, we would very much appreciate it.

Mr. James continued his efforts during the Korean War as well. The Museum would like to expand the collection with more who served in Korea and also photos of local men who served in Viet Nam. If you know of someone please contact us at the Museum at 805 524-0948 or email us at [email protected]. We can scan the originals and return them to you.

05/09/2026

If you missed the interview with Jorge and Luis Hermanos of Hermanos Herrera Zoom event Thursday evening, the video is now posted on our website

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/98cafc_bfd4c5021f4240bdab0e22d63b3267bc/file

05/07/2026

We recently received this picture of the "Fillmore Cafe" asking if we knew where it was located. So far we've drawn a blank. There was a Fillmore Cafe on Central during the 1950s, but this picture was probably taken in the 1920s. Also in the 1920s Central Avenue had diagonal parking.

Realizing that the picture might be from a different Fillmore, does anyone recognize this?

05/05/2026

04/16/2026

Recently we were given a real treasure - the photo album from the FUHS class of 1950, 50th reunion. Unfortunately most of the people weren't identified (why would they, they all knew everyone else).

We have had good success before in having our Facebook followers identify people in photos so we are going to post a few a week. Hopefully you will recognize a parent, grandparent, neighbor (congratulations if you recognize yourself!!!)

Here is the first one. Remember these were taken in 2000 when they would have been in their late 60s.

04/14/2026

You still have time to register for Thursday's 7 pm Zoom about the efforts to establish the St. Francis Dam National Memorial Foundation

You can register at this linK

What is a National Memorial? What had to be done to have one established? What are the future plans for the Memorial?

03/19/2026

We thought this would be a good walk down memory lane.

Agriculture was what built Fillmore and the surrounding communities. First it was dry land farming such as barley and lima beans. Then came orchards, especially apricot and walnuts. Soon some settlers started planting citrus trees, especially oranges. In 1889, C. C. Elkins planted the first commercial orange grove in the Fillmore area. With the growth of citrus in the valley, packinghouses were soon needed.

The Fillmore Citrus Association was formed in 1897 with David Felsenthal as president. In 1899, the Association bought property for $50 at Sespe Avenue and A Street and built its packinghouse on the site for $1,500.

Soon more packinghouses followed. Some were locally owned like the Fremlin-Walker Packinghouse off Santa Clara Street.

Others were owned by companies from elsewhere. One of the earliest of these was the Sparr Packinghouse. Sparr was a Riverside, California, company which opened a packinghouse in Fillmore in the first decade of the 20th century. The packinghouse was on the southwest corner of Main and Central. The first packinghouse burned in 1913 and was rebuilt. The later building burned in 1970.

By 1930, Mutual Orange Distributors, which had started in Redlands in 1910, had a packinghouse in Fillmore on Old Telegraph Road.

In 1913, Frank Erskine, who had been with a citrus association in Whittier, was hired as the manager of the Fillmore Citrus Association. Besides overseeing the construction of a new orange packinghouse in 1918 and a new lemon packinghouse in 1924, he also organized two bands made up of employees, the Fillmore Citrus Association American Band and the Fillmore Citrus Association Mexican Band. According to the business card of the bands, “Music for any occasion at reasonable rates. Either band separately or the two bands consolidated. Proper instrumentation in any number of men from sixteen to fifty.” The bands performed throughout the region as well as on the radio. Erskine left the Fillmore Citrus Association in 1929 to join the newly formed Ramona Savings and Loan.

As the citrus industry expanded in the area, more workers were needed. Jobs included not just picking the oranges, but loading field boxes weighing as much as ninety (90) pounds onto wagons and later trucks. Once the fruit was at the packinghouse it had to be unloaded and then washed. In 1916, mechanical washing machines were installed at the Fillmore Citrus Association orange packinghouse. The fruit had to be graded for size and quality, then packed into boxes by local women workers. The boxes again had to be loaded into trucks or train cars. Mechanics to work on the machinery of the packinghouse and truck drivers were needed.

To ease the labor shortage for pickers, in 1941 the Fillmore Citrus Association built a labor camp in Fillmore. In 1942, they contracted with the Villasenor family, who owned a local restaurant, to provide meals for those living at the camp. This evolved into the Villasenors managing the camp and, in 1979, buying the camp.

Finally, in 1946, the Fillmore Citrus Association built a second orange packinghouse. This building now houses Nova Storage which recognizes the building’s history with murals of citrus crate labels on the building.

Only one citrus packinghouse continues to operate in Fillmore, the Villa Park Orchards Association packinghouse at the former MOD location. The other buildings have been repurposed to avocado packinghouses, artist studios, and storage facilities. Whatever their use, they are a reminder of why Fillmore came to be.

03/10/2026

From the archives:

In Fillmore it’s easy to see reproductions of fruit crate labels. They are on the sides of buildings, in businesses and original ones are displayed with pride in people’s homes. But what is the why and wherefore of the fruit crate labels? How did they come into being and what did they mean?

In 1885, the first orange box labels were designed and lithographed. Development of the use of the offset press with lithographs made the labels relatively inexpensive and quick to produce. The labels identified what the fruit was, where it was grown, who packed it and the grade. Across the label was the trademarked brand name.

Rancho Sespe used a label with a stripe going down the center – gold, blue, red, orange or white with a rooster sitting on a shield in the middle of the label. It is said that Eudora Hull Spalding designed the label herself.

CThe Fillmore Citrus Association was formed in 1897. Its first label was “Cupid” with a winged boy carrying a bow, surrounded by butterflies. This was the packinghouse’s best fruit, the Sunkist Fancy grade. In 1930, the image on the label was changed to a girl’s head with wings in the background.

In 1899, the Fillmore Citrus Fruit Association affiliated with the Southern California Fruit Exchange, which soon became known as Sunkist, to market its fruit.

Different grades of fruit had different labels. The Sunkist Cooperative marketed two grades – Fancy Sunkist at the top followed by simply Sunkist which represented the association’s premium grade of fruit. This would be followed “Choice”, one step below the Sunkist grade.

Below the Cupid brand was Airship which represented the Sunkist-grade fruit. As with Cupid, the image on the label changed over the years, in this case reflecting the evolution of the airplane. “Legal Tender” was used for Sunkist grade after 1935. It was designed by one of the better-known label designers, Godfrey Nystrom.

“Legal Tender” and the “Poinsettia” were originally owned by the Fillmore Packing Company but bought by Filmore Citrus Association in 1935.

The Fillmore Citrus Association’s “choice” grade was represented in the “Cycle” brand beginning in 1897. Cycle Brand is a good example of how the artwork would change over time. It was printed by Schmidt Lithograph of San Francisco. The first label showed a cyclist peddling down a path. He is wearing a sweater with “F” on it and a flat cap. The next version shows the same cyclist, only this time he is on a motorized bicycle. Finally, the meaning of “cycle” changed completely. Instead of a vehicle, “cycle” referred to the cycle of the changing seasons. Each season is represented by a circle with a seasonal landscape. Most brands which were used over several years saw some change in their artwork.

According to local lore, the “Wayno” brand came to be by accident. The story goes that Frank Erskine, at that time manager of the Fillmore Citrus Association, needing a new brand name, went to the workers in the packing house for inspiration. They suggested “bueno” or “good”, but Erskine heard it as “wayno” and thus a new brand (and word) was created.

Of course, oranges were not the only fruit with labels. The Fillmore Citrus Association gave lemons their own label in 1931: “All Year” and “Sespe”.

Crate Labels
Rancho Camulos "Home of Ramona" brand

Piru Citrus Association had several different labels. “Home of Ramona” had been a proprietary brand of Rancho Camulos, but in 1914 the del Valle family assigned the right to use it to the new Piru Citrus Association.

Other early Piru labels included “Mansion” brand whose design went through several versions but always showed the Piru (aka Cook or Warring) Mansion. Other brands included Belle of Piru, Try-sum, Weaver and Triad.

Because of nostalgia as well as the beauty of crate labels they are being reproduced and can be bought in many formats. When comes to originals, common ones (such as Sespe and Selva for the Fillmore Citrus Association) can be purchased for a few dollars. Others, such as an original Cycle or Cupid, if you can find one, can be much more expensive. Either way, these mini works of art remind us of a different time.

If you want to see more examples of local citrus labels, go to https://calisphere.org/ and search for Fillmore Citrus or Piru Citrus.

02/20/2026

If you missed last night's virtual presentation of the Creation of Fillmore Union Highschool, or just want to see it again, it is now available on our website.

https://www.fillmorehistoricalmuseum.org/items-5/creation-of-fillmore-union-high-school

In answer to a couple questions asked last night.

June 1922 Board approved construction of a new gym with dressing rooms for the boys and the girls on either side.

January, 1957, the new administration building opened

February 19, 2026