Penryn's history was paved with granite and nurtured by agriculture

Penryn?s lively history and unusual name are monuments to one man?s persistence. He was Griffith Griffith, a transplanted Welshman who arrived in this foothill community after a failed try at gold mining in Coloma. The shrewd Griffith realized that the true wealth of the region lay not with Mother Lode gold, but in exploiting the area?s natural resources to supply the needs of the Argonauts. In 1864, Griffith established the Penryn granite quarry next to the new Central Pacific Railroad line. Griffith originally named the community Penrhyn, after his Welsh hometown, but the Central Pacific dropped the ?h? after building a depot in the new town. An experienced quarryman, Griffith knew that the granite available at Penryn (part of a massive underground belt) was of superior quality. The granite?s chemical composition insured that it would never discolor or corrode. With the population of California booming and the demand for building materials skyrocketing, Griffith had found his very own bonanza. In 1874, Griffith built California?s largest granite polishing mill, and soon the dressed stone was in use throughout the West. Penryn granite helped strengthen the California State Capitol, Stockton Courthouse, Alcatraz Prison, Mare Island Drydock, the United States Mint in San Francisco, and many other public buildings and private mansions. Griffith used the granite to build his own store and office in Penryn. In early Penryn, granite reigned supreme. Every activity involved granite or granite workers? children; churches rang with hymns sung by granite workers and their families. Granite workers? wages supported the town? s businesses. But the rebel, fruit farming, waited in the shadows for a chance to overthrow the king. The idea of growing fruit for a living in Penryn was, at first, thought laughable. In the 1870s, the few boxes of apples sent to Truckee were considered a huge agricultural shipment. The only ?agriculture? worth speaking of was cutting oak firewood that sold in Sacramento for a price then considered astronomical ? $4 per cord. The area?s soil was thought unfit for any large-scale agriculture. In fact, in the 1880s, when the railroad offered a local man 40 acres of Penryn?s best land at $5 per acre, he refused the offer. He didn?t want to be saddled with unproductive land. Over the next century, that same 40 acres would yield hundreds of thousands of dollars in fruit.In the late 1880s, fruit-growing experiments proved Penryn a prime location for fruit farming. Within a few years, the fruit industry came to dominate Penryn?s economy. Oranges were planted first, but the district soon became famous for its peaches, plums, pears and cherries. For decades, residents took for granted the nightly pageant of farm trucks, filled to overflowing with lugs of fruit, waiting in line at more than a dozen fruit-packing sheds. Daily, dozens of railroad cars would be loaded to begin their journeys to markets that stretched to the East Coast. Continuous agricultural experimentation and ideal conditions produced in the Penryn area what many consider the finest tree fruit grown in the country. In 1890, Penryn embarked on another kind of experiment when a Citrus Colony was established. Financed by English investors, the Citrus Colony purchased 2,000 acres to be developed for agriculture. Colonists came from England, bought property of their choice, and began to farm. Most chose fruit farming. By the turn of the century, nearly a hundred colonists worked the tract. In its heyday, the colonists brought a touch of Old England to Placer County. They held tennis tournaments, organized rugby games and cricket matches. They instituted a short-lived agricultural college. They built the Citrus Colony Club (of Penryn granite, of course), complete with clubhouse, stables and a headmaster?s residence. A popular pastime was ?Cross Country Paper Chases,? an offshoot of old country fox hunts, in which a sign would be secreted in a distant tree and squadrons of horsemen would dash to find it. The fun ended in the 1890s when an economic depression devastated the colony. As colonists left to find other employment, the colony withered. The Citrus Colony Club was torn down, and the college disappeared. Today the boundaries of the Citrus Colony are marked by rows of tall palm trees. Main roads through the Penryn area named English Colony Way and Citrus Colony Road remain the only echoes of this enterprising experiment. Gary Noy is a professor of Sierra Nevada Studies at Sierra College.