Spadra Farm
From the very beginning, the state of California hoped to make its new facility for the developmentally disabled in southern California as self-sufficient as possible. After looking over the plans drafted for the proposed Pacific Colony in 1919, the Los Angeles Times reported that “virtually all the produce consumer by the institution will be raised on the Colony’s large farm areas.” Indeed, the very first buildings constructed at the original location were those “necessary to the Colony’s agricultural needs.” The doctors and activists in charge of planning the Colony expected the future inmates to “assist with light farm work, the planting of orchards, caring for vegetable gardens, and similar employment.”[1] This focus on self-sufficiency continued as plans were under way in the mid-1920s to relocate Pacific Colony. As part of the new site California purchased two hundred acres of land on the south side of Pomona Boulevard to house not just the Colony but “dairy barns, [a] poultry plant, and piggeries.”[2]
We do not know how many of the patients and staff ever actually assisted with food production at the site. It is possible that given the demand on time and resources the hospital instead relied on hired hands to work the agricultural portion of the site. During the agricultural labor shortages of World War II, for example, the state ran an ad in The Stanford Daily, Stanford University’s newspaper, looking for farm hands to work at the state hospitals and Pacific Colony.[3]
The use of the name ”Spadra Farm” for the agricultural portion of the hospital’s acerage appears to have only emerged after what is today California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, began using the site. Today’s Cal Poly Pomona opened September 15, 1938 as the Voorhis Unit of California State Polytechnic College in San Luis Obispo. In 1956 the school moved from San Dimas to the Kellogg campus, which remains the historic core of the modern campus today .[4]
Early on Cal Poly began leasing land from the Pacific State Hospital to use for agricultural education. By the late-1950s the school was using an estimated one hundred and fifty five acres of crop land at the hospital. The first mention of this land use in the Poly Views newspaper (the forerunner of today’s campus newspaper, The Poly Post) was in an article published in April of 1957. In it the author noted that the school grew citrus on three different pieces of land: “the Voorhis, Kellogg, and Spadra Farms.”[5]
Surviving records indicate that in 1971 the Lanterman Center did a land exchange with Cal Poly Pomona to “give” the campus Spadra Farm. Aerial photos taken that year clearly show the land being used for agricultural production. The land was not actually legally given to the campus at this time. Instead the state of California gave the university a ground lease to use the land.[6]
With the closure of the Lanterman Center in 2016, the future use of Spadra Farm was called into question. As part of the transfer agreement Cal Poly Pomona has to accommodate three other state agencies at the site: the Air Resources Board (ARB); the California Highway Patrol; and the California Conservation Corps (CCC). The ARB initially considered using seventeen acres of Spadra Farm to build ARB offices and laboratories. This triggered vocal objections from student in Cal Poly’s College of Agriculture. The Senate of the Associated Students Incorporated, the campus’ student government, passed a resolution supporting the College of Agriculture’s students in their resolve to maintain access to Spadra Farm. The ARB ultimately decided to build on the campus of University of California, Riverside, instead of at Spadra.[7]
The future of Spadra Farm remains unknown.
[1]“Pacific Colony to Start Soon,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1919; “Rush Big Development,” Los Angeles Times, December 9, 1919.
[2]“Pacific Colony Will Be Reborn,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1925.
[3]“Farm Hands Needed,” The Stanford Daily, October 29, 1943.
[4]“Heritage,” http://www.cpp.edu/~aboutcpp/heritage/index.shtml, accessed on November 16, 2016.
[5]Poly Views, April 5-6, 1957, Special Collections and University Archives, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Pomona, California. The College of Agriculture’s newsletter marked 1953 as the start of this arrangement, with the campus using one hundred and twenty seven acres. Agricicolumn, College of Agriculture, California State University, Pomona, Fall 2013 (8).
[6]“Spadra Farm” folder, Special Collections and University Archives, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Pomona, California; email to Kimberley A. Erickson, June 23, 2015, “Lanterman Development Center,” Special Collections and University Archives, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Pomona, California.
[7]“Spadra Land Use Decision to Come Friday,” The Poly Post, January 26, 2016; “California Air Resources Board Chooses Riverside for $366 Million Facility,” UCR Today, March 24, 2016, https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/36011, accessed on November 16, 2016.
[6]“Spadra Farm” folder, Special Collections and University Archives, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Pomona, California; email to Kimberley A. Erickson, June 23, 2015, “Lanterman Development Center,” Special Collections and University Archives, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, Pomona, California.
[7]“Spadra Land Use Decision to Come Friday,” The Poly Post, January 26, 2016; “California Air Resources Board Chooses Riverside for $366 Million Facility,” UCR Today, March 24, 2016, https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/36011, accessed on November 16, 2016.
