John Wiley's Famous "Graton Cling Peach"

In 1881, Graton's farmers were quickly converting hundreds of acres of farmland from hops to peaches. It all began when John Wiley came to settle in Green Valley with a single peach pit.

From the original seed, Wiley eventually propagated and cultivated 16 acres of his famous "Wiley's Graton Cling" peaches. When consumers in San Francisco discovered the delicious special peaches, there was an instant and overwhelming demand for the fruit. Graton's farmers could not plant enough of the famous Wiley cling peaches.

By 1890, the entire region from Occidental Road to Green Valley Road had become one unbroken peach orchard. It was such a dominant crop that when the Post Office opened a local postal branch it was dubbed "Peachland Post Office."

Initially, Graton farmers realized enormous profits. However, the peach industry was ruined by oversupply and price depression, topped off by a terrible spreading peach-blight disease that caused a massive die-off in the vast orchards of peach trees.

Italian laborers laid-off from the nearby declining Redwood logging industry were hired then to convert the dead peach trees into restaurant-grade cooking charcoal, very much in demand by San Francisco's fine dining establishments.

This was accomplished by digging huge trench pits and maintaining steady heat from fires kindled within the buried peach deadwood. Thus ended the once-vital Graton peach industry.

Excerpted from: The Italian Workers
Article by Greg Dabel, "Graton Grapevine" Column