Paso Robles Area Historical Society

of the Almond Capital of the World

By Camille DeVaul and the

Paso Robles Area Historical Society and Museum

Today, Paso Robles is known as the wine country of the Central Coast. But our rolling hills have a history that reached much further back than the vineyards and into the farthest corners of the earth.

For once upon a time, Paso Robles was the Almond Capital of the World.

Farming in Paso Robles had humble beginnings, starting with the Franciscan friars at the Mission San Miguel Arcangel. They planted and harvested wheat, oats, barley, and corn alongside their orchards and vineyards.

Later, the town’s economy thrived on wheat and barley production, and 1891 proved to be a record-breaking year. There was abundant rain in Paso Robles while drought and the Great War descended upon the European continent.

Between 1870 and 1910, California agriculture grew into specialty crops and completely eclipsed grain production. It turned out, conditions in the Paso Robles regions were ideal for dry farming almond orchards.

Soon a radius of 40 miles, the largest almond orchards in the world were planted, and Paso Robles became known as the “Almond Capital.”

Prominent Paso Robles pioneer and homesteader Michael Gerst grew several acres of fruit and nut orchards in the 1860s near the Oak Flats area. He was so successful with his almonds that he took the prize at the 1906 World’s Fair for “the best almonds in the world.”

Around the same time, the Gillis family settled in the Willow Creek area, where they planted and harvested orchards of fruit and nut trees. Typical of many early settlers, the Gillis family cleared the land and cultivated with the intention of dry farming.

Some of the best growing conditions were found in Paso Robles, Creston, El Pomar, San Miguel, Adelaida, and Union.

The Paso Robles Almond Growers Association was formed in 1910 with six members, owning less than a total of 60 acres of almond orchards. Commercial plants of orchards began in 1912, and since 1918, the Paso district has held the leading place in the world in the number of acres planted. To provide for the increased almond yield, the Paso Robles Almond Exchange built a cement warehouse on Riverside Avenue costing $70,000 with a capacity of 1,000 tons.

Another organization that aided in the successful development of the Paso Robles District was the Associated Almond Growers. This organization handled the cultivation and harvesting of the crops of hundreds of nonresidents and well as resident owners.

An excerpt from the Agricultural Survey in September 1921 showed how large the area was planted in almond orchards:

“At this time for 10 miles west of the town in the rolling foothills of the coast range, which are practically frostless and where the rainfall reaches its maximum, to the former grain lands near Shandon, 21 miles to the east and as far north as the boundary line between San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties, the hills are covered with almond plantings.”

Paso Robles had become the “Almond Capital of the World,” and most investors and orchardists did well for the next 25 years, but then the decline began.

In the early years, some orchards were not ideally located and did not produce well. Many of those orchards were removed, and the land returned to producing grain.

By the 1940s to 1950s, many of the almond trees began to decline, and production dropped off dramatically. Many of the early trees had been grafted onto a peach rootstock that proved to be a shallow, short-lived rootstock. It was determined that only almond rootstock should have been planted for dry farming as it would go deeper for moisture and would have a longer life span.

By the 1960s, the California Water Project brought seemingly unlimited water supplies to the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys. Land in these valleys was put into production to grow almonds while the almond trees in Paso Robles declined, and production dropped dramatically.

Very few of the producing acres of almond orchards are left in North County.