Editor’s Note: This piece expands on “C.D. Hubbard and his lemon legacy,” which ran in CVN Vol. 26, No. 19.
Clark D. Hubbard came to Carpinteria in 1910 from the San Fernando Valley, where he had established the Hubbard Association. In San Fernando, he maintained a chicken ranch as well as an assortment of fruit tree orchards, particularly of the citrus variety.
Most importantly, Hubbard was one of the founding members of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, which created the Sunkist logo in 1907. The Sunkist name would become so familiar and popular with the public that the exchange officially changed its name to Sunkist in the 1950s.
Hubbard married into the Carton family of Carpinteria, which included the pioneer Fish and Brown families as relatives. He was thus highly connected within the community when he leased the Fish Packinghouse at the corner of Palm Avenue and Sixth Street and branded it the C.D. Hubbard Fruit Company in 1912.
Carpinteria was known as the lima bean capitol of the world at the time, and the Fish family was instrumental in that development, but Hubbard saw a future in citrus: oranges, lemons and grapefruit. Lemons, however, grew best in Carpinteria thanks to the salty, cool ocean breezes and temperatures that rarely reached freezing point, and Hubbard seized upon those conditions to put Carpinteria firmly on the map as a major lemon growing area. The lemon replaced the lima bean and walnuts as Carpinteria’s main cash crop.
Hubbard’s flair for business advertising brought the lemon to the top of the food chain in Carpinteria agriculture. He marketed his top-quality lemon products under the “Happy” brand depicting a lemon caricature against a blue background, the background indicating its blue-ribbon first prize status.
A notch below the Happy brand was the Smile brand against a red background –that is, second prize quality. Then there was Joy brand for fruit that was less than stellar in size or marred in some way. The taste was excellent for all three varieties of lemons nonetheless. Hubbard used stationary with letterhead, calling cards, mission statement brochures and postcards touting the numerous awards won by Carpinteria lemons at the annual National Orange Show hosted in San Bernardino, California.
Carpinteria lore has it that Hubbard mapped his route to the National Orange Show carefully. He is reputed to have loaded his truck with the best Carpinteria lemons but left enough room to add more fruit as he made his way to San Bernardino. The orchards in Moorpark and his old stomping grounds in the San Fernando Valley were prime spots for scavenging. By the time he reached the National Orange Show, he was able to assemble a spectacular display of lemons from Carpinteria to San Bernardino with Carpinteria lemons taking all the credit!
Besides the Happy, Smile and Joy brands with the smiling lemon caricature on them, Hubbard fruit box labels also boasted beautiful images on its Rincon, Casitas, Delight of Serena, Sherbet and Pie brands. One brand, however, was quickly dropped: the Joy brand in 1920. It was replaced by the Champ brand. The Joy brand was home for lemons not of championship quality. As such, Hubbard decided to put a little boy holding a baseball in one hand and a dog clutched in his other arm on the fruit box label for the less desirable fruit.
The marketing strategy was successful and high sales resulted. The artwork on the Champ brand was a winner. Who could resist the young boy on the crate box when shopping at the market?
By 1930, Hubbard had abandoned the idea of marketing oranges and grapefruit. The C.D. Hubbard Fruit Company changed its name to simply the Hubbard Lemon Association. Then as Hubbard’s health and participation in the company declined, the name of the company changed one more time in the mid-1930s to the Carpinteria Lemon Association.
It is interesting to note that when the lemon industry began to wane in Carpinteria in the 1960s with the rise of the avocado as the next #1 cash crop – and the different lemon associations in Carpinteria and Santa Barbara merged into the Santa Barbara Lemon Association –the Champ brand was still being marketed with the iconic Happy and Smile brands. All the other Hubbard images and brands had been largely discontinued. C. D. Hubbard’s instincts in salesmanship stood the test of time.
Jim Campos is a native born Carpinterian. Upon retiring from a 35-year career with the Carpinteria Unified School District in 2006, he joined a group of local historians to publish two pictorial history books on Carpinteria. Jim’s curiosity of local history grew from that experience. He is currently serving on the Carpinteria Cultural Foundation which honors the achievements and contributions of Carpinteria’sdiverse community. He is also on the board of the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History, where he writes occasional in-depth articles. In 2020, Jim wrote an entire year of columns for CVN’s Throwback Thursday.
