By Brooklynn Wong
The Anaheim Packing House just keeps getting better with age. Though its original citrus-packing warehouse days are long gone, it attracts hundreds of people each day to its eateries, bars, and dessert stations to enjoy the ambience and learn about the history.
The 100th anniversary of the Packing House opening its doors in 1919 was commemorated earlier this year, but on June 1, a 100-Year Summer Celebration was held.
The Anaheim Historical Society led tours of the facility throughout the day, a new documentary about its history was shown that night, restaurants in the Packing House had special commemorative citrus- infused items on their menus, and Anaheim Brewery held a Mini Oktoberfest, where Almrausch Tanzlmusi played German folk music while the brews flowed.
Anaheim Historical Society President Kevin Brown shared, on the tour, about Anaheim and Orange County’s illustrious citrus history. The Packing House was built as a Mission Revival-style warehouse, and countless oranges grown in the area were delivered to pack—using Henry Ford’s assembly line technology—and ship out for sale across the country.
It stopped functioning as a packing house in 1955 and was closed, until another company used it for the ‘60s and beyond.
But in 2014, it opened as what it is today, and the next year it was named to the National Register of Historic Places.
There is now only one orange grove in the city of Anaheim, but the local citrus lore lives on, and on June 1, the masses flooded to the Packing House to honor its past and to enjoy it for what it is now.
