Los Angeles has long been a city packaged and sold by its boosters. From 1900 to 1930, the population ballooned from 100,000 to 1.2 million, and behind that expansion was a sustained branding strategy built around the mystique of a single item: the orange.
Spanish missionaries in San Diego planted the first California orange trees in 1769, but it wasn’t until the 1870s that an endless belt of groves transformed Los Angeles into what became known as the Orange Empire (parts of which are now the Inland Empire). In 1920, citrus was second only to oil among California’s industries, and by 1924, more than 52,000 acres of trees in Los Angeles County were producing about 20 million boxes of the sun-kissed citrus annually.
To market their produce for consumers in the Midwest and on the East Coast, growers formed a cooperative whose innovative national advertising campaigns (a first for fresh fruit) sold more than just a product. They offered sunshine, health, and wealth, three hallmarks of the Southern California lifestyle. A brilliant proprietary name—Sunkist—also helped whisk Americans away to the Golden State every time they peeled one of its “golden apples.” But many wanted to see the idyllic, fragrant groves for themselves, and L.A. advocates were eager to capitalize on the city’s association with the fruit. Soon millions of visitors were traveling west, and many later returned as permanent residents.
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