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Back at the turn of the 20th Century the Bonner Fruit Company was North Hollywood’s biggest employer. The area’s moniker was “The Home of the Peach”.

The Bonner Fruit Company, like most local farm businesses came from humble beginnings. The company’s first cannery was a ramshackle operation set up in the barn of W.H Andrews. It was located on the corner of Lankershim Boulevard and Magnolia Boulevard. At this time, in 1898, North Hollywood was known as Lankershim.

North Hollywood tutors recognize that fruit wasn’t native to the San Fernando Valley area, the fields in the area were primarily used for grazing sheep and cattle, and more familiar crops seen were alfalfa and wheat. Then in 1887, Mrs. E. M. Rose planted the first orange orchard using seeds that originated from Florida. Note, that this is just a decade before the area had developed into mass production and exporting many varieties of fruits and citrus. Local farmers saw how well the fruits thrived in the areas climate and soil and also saw the potential to make more money if land was used primarily for this, rather than their previous crops.

The North Hollywood area was all about the peaches, a combination of the sandy loam (earth) and temperature, made it possible to produce bounteous crops. They adopted a new kind of farming referred to as ‘dry-farming’. This essentially meant cultivating the land without the standard irrigation channels. They would pulverize the dirt and then apply it to the crops as a mulch. This led to the perfect amount of produce. They believed it would be unwise to grow with irrigation, as the trees would not be able to bear the extra fruit and fruit would be wasted.

North Hollywood tutors often reference the aforementioned W.H.Andrews as one of these visionary farmers. He had been growing fruit since it’s introduction to the area, and wanted to maximize his production capacity. A small group of local farmers banded together and established the Toluca Farm Growers Association. Between them they produced all different types of fruits and vegetables. Andrew’s barn became the canning plant for the association. A few years after which to keep up with demand another canning company the Toluca Fruit Co was established.

Andrews’ canning plant focused on peaches, and apricots, pears and tomatoes. His was a runaway success. He ended up purchasing the neighboring Toluca Fruit Co and further expanded his warehouses to cope with the 1000 tons of peaches his company was producing, and 400 tons of apricots. A few years later in 1914 statistics show production had increased to over 5000 tons of peaches. So it’s easy to see how the name “The home of the Peach” was derived.