Unbuckling the history of the Prune Belt of Sonoma County

In the early 1900s the area that extends from Santa Rosa to Cloverdale was known as the Prune Belt of Sonoma County. The agricultural crop became popular when Warren Dutton sought the assistance of Luther Burbank to plant more than 19,500 French prune trees on his on his west Santa Rosa ranch.

The nutritious crop did well in the warmer climes of northern Sonoma County. By 1936, Healdsburg was labeled the “Buckle of the Prune Belt,” with plums exceeding 24,000 acres. The city even sponsored a semi-professional baseball team, the Healdsburg Prune Packers in the 1920s and early ’30s.

Prunes were big business in the early days, when Sonoma County residents held an annual Prune Blossom Festival celebrating the fragrant fruit. The start of the school year was delayed so Sonoma County schoolchildren could assist in the prune harvest.

But prunes began to suffer an image problem after World War II, when the nutritious fruit known for its laxative powers became associated with old people in a society that favored youth. By the 1970s and 1980s most farmers moved to wine grapes, the county’s top agricultural crop to this day.

Janet Balicki Weber