Added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 7, 1978

So I haven’t actually crunched the numbers, but I’d venture a guess that 99% of the landmarks on the National Register of Historic Places are man-made structures and objects, or assemblages of structures and objects, that were put together by humans and only evolve through human intervention. They are non-living things.  

The Glendora Bougainvillea falls into the 1%. It is most definitely alive, and has been for over 120 years, which by itself makes it a unique landmark. Its size is a distinction, too. These bougainvillea vines are wrapped around the trunks of about 25 palm trees lining Bennett and Minnesota Avenues in Glendora. Each palm tree hosts a separate specimen; collectively, they’re said to be the largest planting of bougainvillea in the United States. 

California is rife with towns claiming “the world’s largest…” something or other. Just 15 minutes west on the 210, there’s the locally famous Sierra Madre wisteria, supposedly the world’s largest blossoming plant. What sets the Glendora Bougainvillea apart from other roadside records – indeed, the thing that clinched its listing on the National Register – is how it preserves the history of California’s citrus industry at the turn of the 20th century. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, agriculture was king in LA County. Oranges in particular played a huge role in the growth of Glendora and the rest of the San Gabriel Valley – especially after the transcontinental railway arrived in 1887, connecting the area to the rest of the country. Citrus farmers poured into the region, lured by the promise of sunshine and fertile soil, and savvy marketers advertised the fruit on tourism brochures, postcards, railroad ads and the crate labels that local farmers shipped across the country. By 1920, citrus was second only to oil in terms of LA’s biggest industries. And Glendora was home to one of the largest citrus packing houses in the world. 

Vintage orange crate labels (Pointer brand: Citrus Label Collection, Huntington Library; Evolution & Glendora Heights Fancy brand: UC Davis Library, Archives and Special Collections)

One of the many families who found success in the booming citrus industry of the SGV were the Hamlins, Reuben and Helen, from Canada. They arrived in Glendora in the 1890s, and in 1895 they planted an eight-acre orange grove surrounded by palm trees on the large block bounded by Whitcomb and Bennett Avenues to the north and south, Cullen and Minnesota Avenues to the east and west. According to the Daughters of the American Revolution (whose California headquarters are located inside the Hamlins’ 1904 home in Glendora), Reuben Hamlin was responsible for getting President William Howard Taft hooked on Glendora oranges. By 1911, The Glendora Gleaner reported:

They are packed by the Glendora Citrus Association in quarter sawed oak boxes and put together with brass screws, and shipped once a month regularly to the President. The order for the White House supply was placed with the Glendora Citrus Association to fill by the Southern California Fruit Growers Exchange, because of the well known and recognized superiority of the fruit raised in the Glendora district…In the recognition of the meritorious qualities of the Glendora oranges on occasions such as this, when the best is none too good, considered in connection with the highest prizes captured at the National and State exhibitions, ought to attract to and establish beyond a question of doubt the superiority of the oranges grown in the foothills of Glendora.

– The Glendora Gleaner, June 10, 1911

While the exact year is elusive, historians believe that the famous Glendora Bougainvillea vines were planted somewhere in the 1900 – 1903 range by Helen Hamlin. They grew quickly, aided by the irrigation systems already in place from the Hamlins’ orange grove. At their peak height in the 1930s and ‘40s, the vines climbed 70 feet up the palm trees.

Back during Glendora’s citrus heyday, bougainvillea was a pretty common landscaping feature on the borders of citrus groves, often planted to crawl over walls and fences. It was a fairly new plant in SoCal at the time – we think it was brought to the US on a whaling ship in 1870, a century after French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville and botanist Philibert Commerson discovered it in Brazil.

Why is the bougainvillea so popular in Los Angeles? It just so happens that Southern California and parts of Florida are the only two climates in the United States conducive to growing bougainvillea outside year round. It also helps that it’s such a striking color. Just imagine how picturesque Bennett and Minnesota Avenues would have been during the summertime, before the orange groves were replaced with a housing development: rows and rows of green-leafed trees with bright orange dots, with the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains in the background, all surrounded by these columns of magenta, wrapped around palm trees, against a brilliant blue sky. 

The soil where the roots are planted is protected somewhat by a 20-inch cobblestone wall, built in 1912 by a local stoneworker named Martin Pierce. Rocks were hauled from the San Gabriel River bed, a few miles west, an SGV analog to the Arroyo Seco river rock used for so many craftsman homes around Pasadena at the same time. There used to be many miles of them protecting the citrus groves in and around Glendora, but the stretch of wall that lines Bennett and Minnesota is one of the last remaining in the area.

The Hamlins sold their orange grove in 1929 to another citrus farmer, Ivan Hanley, who built the two-story Spanish colonial on the southeast corner of the property that’s still there today. 12 years later it was sold again to Lloyd and Doris Pittman, whose family has owned it ever since. Much has happened to the Glendora Bougainvillea under the Pittmans’ watch. Heavy rain and winds in the ‘40s and ‘50s sheared off some of the dead palm fronds that the vines used as a makeshift ladder, and the bougainvillea started sliding down and bulging outwards as a result. So the Pittmans added metal trellises to help the vines slink back up. Then they developed the orange grove into condos in the late ‘80s. While that must have involved the uprooting of many a 125-year-old orange tree, there are still dozens of them left on the property. But of course, we all know which plants are the real stars here. The condo development is called “Rancho del Bougainvillea” after all.  

Resources & Recommended Reading

+ “California State Society Headquarters” (dar.org)

+ “Glendora Community Archive and Local History” (CityOfGlendora.org)

+ “Glendora Oranges for President Taft” (Glendora Gleaner, June 9, 1911 – via Glendora Public Library )

+ “Glendora’s Historic Bougainvillea” (The Glendoran Magazine, July 1, 1998 – via Glendora Public Library)

+ Masters, Nathan: “Main Squeeze: How the Orange Revolutionized California” (Los Angeles Magazine, December 24, 2014)

+ O’Connor, Pauline: “1930s Spanish Colonial Revival on century-old citrus orchard asking $1.15M” (Curbed Los Angeles, March 31, 2020)

+ Pittman, Lloyd J.: Glendora Bougainvillea’s NRHP nomination form

+ Shaw, Desmond: “Glendora Bougainvillea | Look At This!” (Video – KCAL News on YouTube)