Leffingwell Ranch (site) (Whittier, California)

 ranch, historical layer / disappeared object

The C.W. Leffingwell Ranch operated here by the turn of the last century until the area was overtaken with new tract homes beginning in 1951. Dr. Charles Wesley Leffingwell (a descendant of a 1636 Connecticut English settler) was an Episcopal clergyman from Knoxville, Illinois. He had settled in Southern California around 1893, when he was officiating at St. John's on Adams Street in L.A. He owned farm land that only successfully produced once his college-educated son, Charles Warring Leffingwell (known as Charles W. Leffingwell, Jr.) began to run the orchards. By 1905, with 34-year old Charles, Jr. at the helm, the ranch was well-known for lemons, and he was a member of the state's "Lemon Men's Club." In 1906, Charles, Jr. purchased 300 acres to expand the ranch, but in 1909 he sold 264 acres to an oil exploration firm. In addition to the lemon crop, another main output of theirs was the walnut. In the hey days of 1916, the well-known ranch comprised of 500 acres.

Japanese farm hands contributed to the work force around 1910. Mexican and white employees were also hired, but each group had segregated living quarters. The Leffingwells constructed an office and bunkhouse designed by the prestigious Pasadena architectural firm, Greene & Greene.

Old-timers recalled in a La Habra history book that the ranch was bordered with roses. The grounds by the 1930s were abundantly rich in colorful, exotic aloes and eucalypti.

The ranch took advantage of the Bracero Program, an international agreement enabling the import of temporary Mexican labor through the Farm Security Administration, and in the winter of 1943 a newspaper reported 50 workers arrived at Leffingwell and another group sent to nearby Murphy Ranch's orange groves.

Leffingwell Ranch succumbed to the housing boom as the first phase of 3-bedroom 2-bath ranch-style and contemporary-style homes were produced by the prolific Lusk Company by 1951. In fact, Lusk set up their headquarters on the former ranch and did not vacate to its Irvine offices until 1970. Their first commercial development was Whittwood shopping center (which also stood on former ranch land) and opened in 1951. The same year, the first phase of homes were sold in a tract to the west of the mall, between Cole Road and Scott Avenue.

Lusk continued to roll out more and more phases, enticing housing-hungry families and war veterans with the mild climates, roofed outdoor patios, and electronic conveniences of garbage disposal, dishwasher, clothes dryer, an air conditioning system, and lots of closets. In 1953, homes priced from $13,950 to $14,525 were offered at Citrustree Road, which is situated east of the mall. Another sales draw touted that the "tract set back from the boulevard for suburban seclusion."

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