Historic apple orchard restored at Whiskeytown

Park staff and partners from John Muir National Historic Site and the Smart Workforce Center have been busy recently transplanting 47 apple trees into the Tower House Historic District at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area.

Most of Whiskeytown’s historic fruit trees perished during the Carr Fire, but the park took cuttings from the remaining historic trees and then grafted them with root stock in a partnership with Humboldt Cider Company and Friends of Redwood Acres. This grafting was successful. The transplanting of these small trees back into the Whiskeytown earth was also successful. As a result of these efforts, the historic character of the landscape has been retained and enhanced deep into the future.

“The successful grafting and transplanting of the apple trees represent another great leap forward for both the national recreation area and the local community,” notes Park Superintendent Josh Hoines.

Some fun facts about the orchard restoration project include the following.

Mulch for the trees is very locally sourced – it came from the removal of hazard trees within the Oak Bottom area of the park.

Water for the trees is also very locally sourced – it will come from an on-site spring, the same spring that has been a reliable and steady source of Tower House orchard water since the 1850s.

The historic apple trees are not your normal fujis and grandma smiths. Rather, the varietals include Snow Apple, York Imperial, Carolina Red June, Rosebrook Gravenstein, and Sheepnose.

The Tower House Historic District is named after early Shasta County businessman Levi Tower, who grew a robust and prize-winning fruit orchard on the tract of land beginning in the 1850s. After Tower died in 1865, his best friend and business partner, Charles Camden, took over orchard management. It is likely that day-to-day orchard labor during this era involved combinations of Chinese immigrants, Native Americans, and new arrivals from the eastern United States.While park staff have installed a temporary deer fence around the apple trees to protect them from park wildlife, eventually, once the historic fruit trees are well-established, the orchard will be open to the public. In a future November, imagine carefully plucking one of the apples from one of these historic trees. And then imagine the juicy, delicious taste as you bite into it.To learn more about the history of the orchard: https://tinyurl.com/4xzr8sru.

To learn more about the general history of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area: https://tinyurl.com/24npft2k.