The history of Brawley, the most
productive area and the largest produce shipping point in the State, extends
down through a period of eighteen years, in which its transition from a
barren desert to a zone of almost marvelous fertility, has been accomplished
without hindrance through crop failure, pestilence or other disaster.
From a single brush wickiup in 1901 has
grown the prosperous and well built city of 5000 inhabitants, enjoying the
benefits of every essential modern public utility, and prosperous beyond the
dreams of its most hopeful projectors.
Brawley today is the center of the
greatest proven producing area in the United States - a claim sustained by
its annual record of produce shipments, and its accredited rank as the
second shipping point in the State of California. The almost marvelous
fertility of its soil is equaled by the diversity of crops which mature
perfectly and yield abundantly in response to practical farming processes.
Nature withholds no good thing from the practical farmer, and two or even
three crops will mature within a single unbroken year of 365 days in which
the Brawley farmer may continue his farming operations.
Fruits, citrus and deciduous, dates,
olives, grapes, melons, cotton, corn and all cereals, alfalfa and all
vegetables yield in the most lavish abundance, and are first of spring
products on the Eastern market.
Brawley lettuce, spinach, peas,
cantaloupes, watermelons, tomatoes and grapes are first to mature and
command highest price in the Eastern markets. The grower in this section
takes no hazard on a harvest. Crop failures and parasites that destroy or
minimize crop returns are unknown here, and the calendar year is one
continuous round of seed time and harvest. In no section of the State does
Nature respond more liberally to the touch of toil with a greater assurance
of a harvest as a reward of properly directed energy.
The abundance of all-the-year-around
forage and favorable weather conditions make this an ideal section for stock
growing and dairying, particularly the latter, in which the Brawley district
surpasses any other section in the Valley and the State of California. The
Valley supplies Los Angeles with 20,000 pounds of butter daily, and if
required could grow all of the live-stock necessary to sustain the southern
half of the State. The profits of stock growing is enormous and that of
dairying scarcely less. Of the total area of 320,000 acres of irrigated land
in the Imperial Valley 100,000 is in alfalfa, 125,000 in milo maize and
50,000 in barley. The cotton acreage will not exceed 90,000.
Brawley is the shipping center of a
producing area of 160,000 acres of the most productive land in the Imperial
Valley, and aside from cotton is the producing center of the Valley.
In the volume of its vegetable products
Brawley surpasses by far any other section of the Valley. Of the 4400 cars
of cantaloupes shipped out last season almost 3000 were from Brawley
district, and 2501 from Brawley station direct. The shipments of lettuce
from the Valley this season aggregated about 385 cars, of which Brawley
shipped 279 cars.
Little cause can be found for criticism
of a climate that invariably matures a crop, and in some instances two and
even three crops, and in a single season without failure. There are but two
seasons - winter and summer, and not much of either, the two merging closely
into each other. The temperature seldom drops below 30 degrees, and while it
soars to 112 at times during the summer, this temperature is attended by no
humidity and is not hurtful, the heat being equal to about 90 degrees in the
east. The rainfall is less than two inches annually and could be spared
altogether.
The climate is especially beneficial to
rheumatic and asthmatic patients, in many cases effecting a radical cure of
both within six months. No malarial or other antagonistic element has ever
been recorded here. Children are rugged and healthy and the prevailing
standard of public health is far above the average.
Including a magnificent $70,000 high
school building, a grammar school building recently erected at a cost of
$35,000, a splendid manual training system, three lesser school buildings
and a parochial school, with a large attendance and perfect equipment, no
city in any State has better schools nor a more capable educational staff
for every branch of modern education, from kindergarten to the advanced
system.