Honeyville?
Marilyn Varney writes:
"I noticed this picture on eBay for " '20s snapshot photo Honeyville in Pomona, CA." Could Honeyville really have existed in Pomona? Have you heard of this in your past research? I know you have learned many interesting things about this nice city and I wanted to pass along this information to you."
Honeyville is a new one on me but judging from the photo it was a roadside farm stand, maybe on a road like Holt or Mission or Foothill used by pre-freeway travelers.
There used to be orange juice stands too, an idea that used to strike me (born in the soda era) as ridiculous until it dawned on me that back then, fresh-squeezed OJ was probably a novelty, and a refreshing one at that.
From the look of this alternate photo:
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt8c6020b0/?layout=metadata&brand=oac
It seems to be located closer to the mountains than Holt or Mission, maybe west of what's now Towne Ave. on Foothill.
[Thanks, Debra. -- DA]
Now, mind you, I am only guessing, but the sign above the building says (among other things) "Los Angeles 23 miles."
Now, using L.A. City Hall as a landmark, and using the scale at the bottom of the MapQuest map, 23 miles east of Los Angeles (as the crow flies) is closer to Claremont and Upland, where you will find stone building of this sort still standing from long ago.
(While clearing the ground for planting orange and lemon trees, many of these granite stones were dug up. Enterprising builders used these "Claremont potatoes" as cheap building supplies. There is a row of houses on Mills Avenue at the south end of the city made of such stones. The recently renovated trolley rest stop on 24th Street in Upland is also made of these stones.)
Anyway, as I said, this is only a guess using the clues in the picture. I'll bet this building once stood on Baseline (aka 16th) or Highland (aka 19th). Am I right?
[Who knows? I also wondered about the 23-mile designation. As the other photo a reader linked to showed, Honeyville was closer to the mountains than a Holt or Mission address would be, so you could be right. -- DA]
I just found this website for Honeyville, whose Corporate Sales Office is in Rancho Cucamonga: http://honeyvillegrain.com/contact/Contact.html
"For over 50 years Honeyville Food Products has been providing wholesale food ingredients to the food service industry. In addition to premium ingredients, Honeyville offers a wide variety of specialty milled flours and cereal, beverage, and bakery mixes to wholesale food processors, bakeries, and manufacturers. Our constant search for new and innovative products and packaging gives our customers un-paralleled opportunities. Honeyville Food Products strives to offer the best possible ingredients to both the retail and wholesale communities." (from the website)
Curioser and curioser...
[Sounds like a coincidence to me: The roadside stand photo was shot in 1924 and the Honeyville corporate website says the business started post-WWII. -- DA]
Not sure why I find this so intriguing...but there was an Albert C. Mayer who owned a Honeyville business in Duarte (on Huntington Drive) and in Monrovia as well. In the 1930 census he's listed as the owner of a "honey road stand." The business was apparently started in 1918, according to his son's obit here:
http://obit.hoodmortuary.com/obitdisplay.html?id=516918
The business was later moved to Durango, Colorado.
My hunch is that there were several roadside stands for Honeyville products and the Pomona one was very likely on a well-traveled highway such as Foothill (Route 66). But Baseline is possible too, I suppose, though I'm not sure whether Pomona city limits included Baseline at that time.
The photo was taken in 1924, according to the database at Pomona Library.
Perhaps a perusal of some local city directories of the time would provide an address for the stand. I can't access those online, sorry.
[Debra, that was very helpful. Perhaps the Pomona Library's Special Collections department will weigh in on this if an address can be found. -- DA]
Honeyville is a Durango Landmark. Hermosa Cemetery immediately adjoins it. Both the father Albert C. Mayer and son Albert Joseph are buried there. You can see photos of the Cemetery at Findagrave.com