Antique 1930s Sespe Brand Sunkist Lemon Crate Label 🍋 — Fillmore Lemon Assn., Fillmore, Ventura County CA

Who Grew Sespe Lemons? 🍋 Antique 1930s Sunkist Crate Label, Fillmore Lemon Assn., Ventura County

Size: 12 1/4" x 8 3/4"

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A rocky river canyon, red cliffs, still green water, and a lemon in its Sunkist wrapper tucked in the corner. This is an unused Sespe Brand lemon crate label from Fillmore, out in Ventura County, California, and I think it's one of the prettiest canyon scenes on any citrus label.

🔍 What's On It

SESPE in big letters with BRAND and REG. U.S. PAT. OFF., over a painted canyon: a still stream winding between boulders under rugged cliffs and a far ridge. A shield at the left reads GROWN AND PACKED BY FILLMORE LEMON ASSN., FILLMORE, CALIF., VENTURA COUNTY, and at the lower right sits a lemon wrapped in tissue printed Sunkist. There's a line of tiny printer's type along the lower-left border, too small to read; the label catalogues credit Schmidt Litho Co. of Los Angeles.

🏞️ Sespe Creek

Sespe is a real place. Sespe Creek runs about 61 miles out of the Sierra Madre Mountains and joins the Santa Clara River near Fillmore, cutting through a rugged gorge on the way. The name goes back to a Chumash village recorded in 1791, called Cepsey, Sek-pe or S'eqpe', which is said to mean "kneecap." The 53,000-acre Sespe Condor Sanctuary was set aside in that country in 1947, and in 1992 more than 31 miles of the creek were named a Wild and Scenic River. Catalogues of this label call the picture Sespe Canyon, and it sure looks the part.

🍋 The Fillmore Lemon Growers

Fillmore's growers organized early. Seven of them formed the Fillmore Citrus Fruit Association in 1897, and in 1899 they joined the Southern California Fruit Exchange, the cooperative that became famous under the Sunkist name. They built a lemon packinghouse in 1924, and according to the Fillmore Historical Museum, the lemons got their own labels in 1931, All Year and Sespe. This one is printed for the Fillmore Lemon Association, which carried on until it merged into the Saticoy Lemon Association in 1962.

That Sunkist on the wrapper was the California Fruit Growers Exchange's brand, a word coined for them by the Lord & Thomas ad agency. The label shows one of their lemons in its Sunkist tissue, right in the corner.

📏 Details

• Antique Sespe Brand lemon crate label, Fillmore Lemon Assn., Fillmore, Ventura County
• Painted canyon scene with the Sunkist-wrapped lemon
• About 12 1/4" x 8 3/4", unused, New Old Stock
• You'll get one label like the ones shown

🖼️ It's a beautiful piece to frame in a kitchen, a cabin or anywhere you'd like a little California on the wall, and a natural gift for anybody from Ventura County.