Patterson: The Apricot Capital Planned Like Paris
Near Modesto, California
Thomas W. Patterson filed his colony map with Stanislaus County on December thirteenth, nineteen oh nine, and the town he created was unlike any other in the Central Valley. He modeled it on Washington, D.
C. and Paris, with radiating streets fanning out from circular plazas rather than a simple grid. The land itself had come from the Rancho del Puerto, a Mexican land grant originally awarded to the Hernandez family in eighteen forty-four.
Patterson's agricultural colony took root in the deep valley soil, and the apricot orchards that spread out from the town made it famous enough that in nineteen seventy-one the chamber of commerce officially proclaimed it the Apricot Capital of the World. The town still holds an annual Apricot Fiesta to mark the season.
