AirTalk is off this week, so we’ll be supplying our podcast listeners with reruns of our Southern California history segments. Today’s episode is on the Southern California’s expansive orange farming. If you’d like to suggest a topic for a future SoCal history segment, email it to atcomments@laist.com. 

You ever wonder why Orange County is named Orange County? The answer is actually fairly simple, it’s because of that citrus fruit that was being farmed in the area and its neighboring counties; oranges, and other citrus, became a key part of Southern California’s booming economy from the late 19th Century and for most of the 20th. Although citrus orchards aren’t as plentiful nowadays, dropping in size, you’ll still find residential growers around the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, and the Inland Empire. Today on AirTalk, we offer a primer on Southern California citrus with Vince Moses,CEO of the museum/preservation consulting firm VinCate and Associates, and Benjamin Jenkins, University of La Verne associate professor of history and book author on the subject.