Oxnard Sugar Beets: Ventura County's Lost Cash Crop by Maulhardt Jeffrey Wayne

Author:Maulhardt, Jeffrey Wayne [Maulhardt, Jeffrey Wayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

6

A TOWN IS BORN

The Oxnards’ next purchase was from Jack Hill. On December 3, 1897, the Ventura Free Press revealed that Henry T. Oxnard of New York purchased thirty-one acres from Hill for $6,453. Oxnard also paid Hill and his wife $40,000 for two-thirds interest in their three-hundred-acre ranch. The properties were located to the west of the factory site, and it was here that Major J.A. Driffill would lay out the town site of Oxnard.

The first mention of the new town was reported by the Ventura Free Press on January 7, 1898: “The surveyors began yesterday at the new townhouse which will probably be known as Bayard.” Two weeks later, the same paper announced, “The new town is to be called Oxnard in honor of Henry T Oxnard.” The article also mentioned that there would be an opposition town a short distance south of Oxnard. This never materialized.

In January 1898, the Colonial Improvement Company drew up plans for a city. Major James Alexander Driffill was president of the company and superintendent of the sugar factory. Driffill was born in Rochester, New York. While in New York, Driffill began a long association with the military. He joined the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of the National Guard. After relocating to California, he continued his military involvement and earned the rank of lieutenant for Company D of the Seventh California Regiment. He was next promoted to major. Later, during the Spanish-American War of 1898, Driffill organized a company of volunteers in case there was an attack on the western shores of Ventura County. He even used the sugar factory warehouses as his armory.

Driffill came to California in 1883. 57 He ran a nursery in Pomona, cultivating oranges and other horticultural products. After the nursery suffered through a devastating freeze, Driffill found employment with the government as a revenue officer. He began work at the Oxnards’ Chino factory as the revenue officer for the United States government on July 1, 1891. His job was to determine how many pounds of sugar the factory produced in order to earn the two-cent bounty per each pound of sugar. Driffill gained the respect of the Oxnard workers thanks to his loyalty and honesty toward his job. He found employment with the Oxnard family at the factory in 1893, working as a purchasing agent and storekeeper. 58 When the new factory began taking shape in Ventura County, Major Driffill was appointed manager. One of his first duties as supervisor during the building of the factory was to see that the crew worked diligently. To make sure they did not become sidetracked by the temptations of alcohol, Driffill approached the board of supervisors in December 1897 and requested that the board deny any license for the construction of a saloon in the neighborhood of the factory: “The work that had to be done required men of clear head and a steady hand.” 59

In addition to his head position at the factory, Driffill served as the original vice-president of the Colonia Improvement Company.

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