The Currier Apricot Pitting Shed

The Doss and Rebecca Currier homestead was located at 2767 Royal Avenue, Simi Valley. Today there is a small housing tract there, with a street named Roberta.

The Pitting Shed was built around 1930. When it was time to harvest apricots, the Curriers hired high school girls, twelve to fifteen of them. They used to talk at lunchtime about what they would spend their money on.  It was usually school clothes. The boys worked in the orchard, and carried the trays of fruit into the shed.

Pat Havens, our City Historian, worked at this Pitting Shed and recalls that during apricot harvesting season, many people throughout the community would pause their daily routine to process the fruit.  Once the harvesting and pitting was complete they would go back to their normal day-to-day activities.

Once harvested, the apricots would be sold at auction.  Buyers from Los Angeles would come and bid on the apricot crop.  Twenty-five cents a pound was the top price they ever got.

The pits were sold as well. Some of the uses were almond flavoring, polishing compounds, among others. It was said that one year when the prices were low, the pits brought in more revenue than the dried fruit.

The pitting shed houses some of our farm implements, a chuckwagon, and several of our tractors.  

The next stop is the Barbershop Building.