Some early attempts at planting citrus for commercial production were made in the Galveston, Houston, and Beaumont areas in the early 1920s, but they were unsuccessful because of frost damage. Commercial growth was primarily restricted to the Rio Grande Valley area for this reason.

Commercial planting began in the Rio Grande Valley around 1910 and production of these crops in 1920. The work for these fields was provided by Mexican laborers who came to the United States to escape the poverty and the cruelty of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Many of the early laborers had been part of the Mexican elite before coming to Texas.

Over the years, hurricanes and severe freezes have created many setbacks for commercial citrus and vegetable crops. Today, the number of producers and packinghouses in the Texas Rio Grande Valley has been reduced considerably.

Today’s fruits and vegetables are shipped in mass-produced cardboard boxes, but historically, growers, packers, and shippers used wooden crates to transport their fruit and vegetables. On one end of the crate, a colorful paper label was pasted to designate who or where the produce came from.

Texas citrus labels date from the 1920s through the 1960s. The largest number of these labels that exists today date primarily in the 1940s and 1950s. There are fewer Texas labels available than there are California labels because label collecting wasn’t always a popular pastime in Texas. In California, however, people have been collecting labels since 1890 when young boys collected and traded them like baseball cards. Unfortunately, in Texas, most labels were destroyed when their usability expired.

Other regions known for their fruit and vegetable labels are Florida (dating back to 1904) and Arizona (dating back to the 1890s). Washington, Oregon, and Colorado are also know specifically for their beautiful apple, pear, cherry, and plum labels.

Another source of beautiful labels and rich history is cans. From the late 1900s to the 1930s, there were several large canneries, especially on the East and West coasts. Often the canneries were founded or operated by immigrants, and it’s not unlikely that you’ll find instructions written in old German or other foreign languages on these early labels.

Many early canneries were family operations, and they displayed the family name or a picture of a family member on the can labels. Large printing companies eventually developed stock labels, so the same graphic would appear on the labels of more than one canner or packing company. Only the text on these labels was revised for each individual company.