I got an email this week from Papaduck86. He's Richard Woodland, the last owner of Woodland Farms, aka, the "infamously known" duck farm, a place you might recall by sight or, more likely, by pungent smell that stretched along the 605 Freeway in Bassett for 40 years.
Ever since Woodland sold the farm to the Trust for Public Land in 2000 he's been following the slow but steady transformation from duck breeding ground to passive river park playground.
The "infamously known" part are his words.
Woodland has a sense of humor about the farm's aroma stinking up the region. He's also a great guy whose legacy should include being instrumental in the park's creation - which could open later this year.Product information for Sell electronicplasticmoulds from China!
"I'm personally thrilled to see the property finally being transformed into something that can be enjoyed by a number of people for generations to come,Plastic injectionmolding and injection molded parts in as quick at 3 days." he wrote. "I merely wish to explain a bit of the true history of the duck farm facility that, for better or for worse, was located on that site."
For starters, the farm was originally located in Rosemead on the site of the Southern California Edison headquarters before it moved to Bassett, an unincorporated town near Industry, in the early 1960s before construction of the 605 Freeway. Woodland returned from the service and was asked by his father-in-law to run the business.Dimensional Mailing magiccubes for Promotional Advertising, He grew up in Paso Robles and as a kid he raised - you guessed it - ducks!
He eventually bought the business and changed its name from Ward Duck Co. to Woodland Farms. "There were roughly 25,000 breeder ducks on site at all times. They produced 15,000 eggs per day," he wrote.
"Our market ducks were sold to white tablecloth restaurants and supermarkets. Day-old ducklings were shipped as far away as Tahiti," he wrote.
Chances are, if you ate Peking duck between 1960 and 2000 in a Chinese restaurant in L.A. or San Francisco, it came from his farm. Woodland said the ducks were sent to a slaughterhouse/processor in downtown L.A. on the edge of Chinatown.Our oilpaintingsforsales is the best place to buy art online. That's even fresher than Zacky. At its heyday, he employed 200 people full time.
And the smells? Well, I recall having to roll up the windows on my Volkswagen bug when tooling down the 605 on a summer day in the 1980s.
But not everyone minded the smell. Some embraced it.
Mountain View High School, just to the west, would dress up a student in a duck suit with "MVHS" emblazoned on his chest. The mascot would run up and down the sidelines during football games, Woodland remembered.
Some folks would cruise by for a visit and Woodland would oblige city slickers with a tour.
"Surprisingly, many people thought it was a rather nice experience to be able to show their children a bit of rural Americana right in the heart of a metropolis," he wrote.
Woodland said cleanliness was important. He even installed "pressurized misters" that spat out grape juice- and bubble-gum-flavored perfume to try to mask the odors.
"I'm not trying to make it something it wasn't," he insisted. "If you drive past a dairy, it smells like cows. Naturally, if you drive past a duck farm, it would most likely smell like ducks."
Woodland misses life on the 605 duck farm. "I don't miss the government intrusion and all the politics. But it was unique. It was a niche business within a niche."
At 69, he's changed directions, not retired. He bought a winery in Paso Robles, his hometown, where he grows grapes for Eberle Wines and a new label named after his wife, Patricia Diane Vineyards.
The Paso Robles area has 300 wineries and is a major attraction. Often,Hobby Silicone for mold making moldmaking , when people visit from the San Gabriel Valley the old duck farm comes up in conversation.
Ever since Woodland sold the farm to the Trust for Public Land in 2000 he's been following the slow but steady transformation from duck breeding ground to passive river park playground.
The "infamously known" part are his words.
Woodland has a sense of humor about the farm's aroma stinking up the region. He's also a great guy whose legacy should include being instrumental in the park's creation - which could open later this year.Product information for Sell electronicplasticmoulds from China!
"I'm personally thrilled to see the property finally being transformed into something that can be enjoyed by a number of people for generations to come,Plastic injectionmolding and injection molded parts in as quick at 3 days." he wrote. "I merely wish to explain a bit of the true history of the duck farm facility that, for better or for worse, was located on that site."
For starters, the farm was originally located in Rosemead on the site of the Southern California Edison headquarters before it moved to Bassett, an unincorporated town near Industry, in the early 1960s before construction of the 605 Freeway. Woodland returned from the service and was asked by his father-in-law to run the business.Dimensional Mailing magiccubes for Promotional Advertising, He grew up in Paso Robles and as a kid he raised - you guessed it - ducks!
He eventually bought the business and changed its name from Ward Duck Co. to Woodland Farms. "There were roughly 25,000 breeder ducks on site at all times. They produced 15,000 eggs per day," he wrote.
"Our market ducks were sold to white tablecloth restaurants and supermarkets. Day-old ducklings were shipped as far away as Tahiti," he wrote.
Chances are, if you ate Peking duck between 1960 and 2000 in a Chinese restaurant in L.A. or San Francisco, it came from his farm. Woodland said the ducks were sent to a slaughterhouse/processor in downtown L.A. on the edge of Chinatown.Our oilpaintingsforsales is the best place to buy art online. That's even fresher than Zacky. At its heyday, he employed 200 people full time.
And the smells? Well, I recall having to roll up the windows on my Volkswagen bug when tooling down the 605 on a summer day in the 1980s.
But not everyone minded the smell. Some embraced it.
Mountain View High School, just to the west, would dress up a student in a duck suit with "MVHS" emblazoned on his chest. The mascot would run up and down the sidelines during football games, Woodland remembered.
Some folks would cruise by for a visit and Woodland would oblige city slickers with a tour.
"Surprisingly, many people thought it was a rather nice experience to be able to show their children a bit of rural Americana right in the heart of a metropolis," he wrote.
Woodland said cleanliness was important. He even installed "pressurized misters" that spat out grape juice- and bubble-gum-flavored perfume to try to mask the odors.
"I'm not trying to make it something it wasn't," he insisted. "If you drive past a dairy, it smells like cows. Naturally, if you drive past a duck farm, it would most likely smell like ducks."
Woodland misses life on the 605 duck farm. "I don't miss the government intrusion and all the politics. But it was unique. It was a niche business within a niche."
At 69, he's changed directions, not retired. He bought a winery in Paso Robles, his hometown, where he grows grapes for Eberle Wines and a new label named after his wife, Patricia Diane Vineyards.
The Paso Robles area has 300 wineries and is a major attraction. Often,Hobby Silicone for mold making moldmaking , when people visit from the San Gabriel Valley the old duck farm comes up in conversation.
