In valley agriculture, empires can rise and fall, and sometime vanish completely. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, the story of what was once one of the largest fruit farms in the world.
The Tagus Ranch once spanned 7,000 acres in Tulare County, near Highway 99, halfway between Tulare and Visalia. It was founded in 1912 by wealthy businessman Hulett C. Merritt, who owned a large portion of U.S. Steel. At one point, Merritt’s operation claimed to produce 10 percent of the world’s canned peaches.
The Tagus Ranch was home to multiple labor camps, a company store, restaurant, gas station, packing house cotton gin and post office. For many years workers were paid in scrip, which could only be used in the company store. In 1933, workers at the ranch went on a strike, which spread to other farms and packing houses throughout the valley. Steinbeck scholars say the strike inspired the author’s 1936 novel In Dubious Battle. During World War II, the Tagus Ranch also housed a POW camp for captured German prisoners.
Merritt died in 1956, and over the years the ranch was sold off. According to UPI, the last 325 acres were sold in 1966. In the post war era, a motel and country music venue were built along the highway on the former ranch property. The building and a giant neon sign proclaiming the “World Famous Tagus Ranch” were torn down around 2015.
