The year was 1888 when the Olson family left Sweden and immigrated to the Central Valley of California. The family then consisted of grandparents, John and Anna, their two sons and their families. In 1889 they bought 22 acres of land near Kingsburg and started a legacy in stone fruit farming that has continued for 113 years, into the third century.
Before days of refrigeration and rapid transportation, peaches were cut in halves and dried in the sun for preservation. This task involved the entire family, from children to grandparents, working with the fruit from sun up to sun down during the long hot days of summer.
World War I interrupted the routine farm life as the two oldest grandsons of John and Anna, Carl and Joel, were called to serve our country on the battlefront in France. This left the youngest grandson, Paul, and his father to keep the farm going.
Olson Family Farms has endured and experienced many changes through the years in the small rural area of Kingsburg from farming with mules and horses to the advent of the first Fordson tractor in 1917, through the hard years of the depression, to modern times.
