Forty miles from Palm Springs is a mile-high scenic glen that offers an inviting four-season world.
Oak Glen, in the high country above Beaumont, offers more than 300,000 visitors each year opportunities to pick their own apples, and much more. A five-mile loop of apple orchards and pastoral scenery, Oak Glen also offers shops, restaurants, bakeries, cider mills, living-history sites, wedding venues and more.
In April, the annual Apple Blossom Festival takes place over two weekends, offering live music, orchard walks and a variety of other events. The summer is busy with numerous shows, exhibits and family activities. The apple harvest season draws visitors from August through November.
The first settlers in this glen on the south-facing slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains were the Cahuilla and Serrano Indigenous tribes. The natural forests, bubbling streams, unique climate and elevation made the area attractive for hunting small game, gathering large black acorns, and harvesting seed grains and fruits.
The first outsider to settle in Oak Glen was Enoch Kidder Parrish, from Jefferson County, N.Y., in the 1860s. He planted the area’s first acre of apple trees in 1876 and established what is now called the Parrish Pioneer Ranch. The current Parrish Ranch store was the original packing shed and is said to be the oldest wooden stick structure in San Bernardino County.
In 1877, shortly after Parrish’s apples were planted, another settler, Joseph E. Wilshire, arrived with his family and acquired 3,000 acres of land. He planted not only apples, but cherry and pear orchards.
Wilshire also built the first Oak Glen School House—unique in that it was built on skids and was pulled around the glen to locations where the children were. In 1927, Joseph Wilshire’s son, C.J. “Blackie” Wilshire, had a stone schoolhouse built on the ranch, which is still there.
A rancher who owned several orange orchards in nearby Redlands, Isaac Ford, moved to Oak Glen in 1898, bought 100 acres and subsequently founded the popular Snow-Line Orchard.
A few years later, the vast Los Rios Rancho got its start when brothers Howard Rivers and Ernest Rivers bought 320 acres from the Wilshires. Between 1906 and 1909, they planted apples, becoming Southern California’s largest apple-producing and shipping operation. Although the Oak Glen orchards primarily grew apples for export, the area became popular in the 1940s when several farms began to sell apples, apple pies, apple butter and apple cider.
Riley’s Farm got its start a century after the first apples were planted in Oak Glen. In 1978, Dennis Riley, his wife and three sons left city living and bought 12 acres from the Wilshires. They built a log home and initially tended an orchard of several hundred heirloom apples. Dennis Riley is credited with the open-to-the-public “U pick” concept that appealed to tourists immediately.
More of the extended Riley family became involved by 1987, when family patriarch Ray Ellis Riley, Dennis’ father—who had brought his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) family from Utah to California—bought the 200 acres adjoining his son’s orchard from the Wilshire family.
Riley’s Farm has expanded through the years and has continued to offer tourist attractions. It is currently situated on 760 acres and is now home to the Joe E. Wilshire Packing Shed, as well as orchards. About 55 acres is dedicated to public events: the U-pick orchards, hayrides, dinners, agricultural information and living history interpretations of the American Revolution and other national events. Visitors will often encounter busloads of school children re-creating battles between the Redcoats and the Colonists. Ray’s son Jim Riley is the current manager, and other family members have roles there.
Many of the apple orchards of Oak Glen produce more than 20 varieties of apples; Riley’s grows more than 30. The Vasquez and King David varieties are grown exclusively in the area. Some heirloom apple varieties grown there are not commercially available and can be found exclusively in Oak Glen.
The largest apple tourist destination is the 14-acre Oak Tree Village. In addition to gift and curio shops, a candy kitchen and a large restaurant, there’s a leather shop and an animal park offering pony rides, a “feed the animals” attraction and other entertainment.
The Oak Glen Preserve
A new dimension was added to Oak Glen in 1996 when The Wildlands Conservancy opened the 909-acre Oak Glen Preserve on the Los Rios Rancho. Los Rios had become Southern California’s largest historical apple ranch by then—and part of it was slated for residential subdivision.
Saved by the Conservancy, the Oak Glen Preserve now leases farmland within the preserve to apple growers, alongside a continually growing nature attraction. There are two duckponds, two year-round streams, a botanic garden, a Children’s Outdoor Discovery Center and several hiking trails. It’s a fascinating place with easy-to-explore natural sections reached by wide, broad pathways. The Conifers of California section features a trail through giant sequoia trees, California redwoods, and various pines, spruces and oaks.
The largest oak tree of its type in North America, the Champion Oak, is in a creek bed on the mountainside above the preserve. The massive oak is estimated to be 1,500 years old.
Admission to the preserve is free. Along with nature lovers, hikers and locals wanting to escape the heat of the desert, there are often groups of schoolchildren. Each year, almost 37,000 children visit the preserve and its Discovery Center.
Oak Glen is a wonderful day trip from the Coachella Valley, especially during the scorching summer months, when the area offers cooler temperatures—and a bit later in the year, when you can wander the orchards and pick your own apples!
Sources for this article include The Wildlands Conservancy (wildlandsconservancy.org/preserves/oakglen); “The Story of Riley’s Farm” by Jim Riley (rileysfarm.com); the Oak Glen Apple Growers Association (www.oakglen.net); the county of San Bernardino; and Afoot & Afield: Inland Empire by David and Jennifer Money Harris (Wilderness Press, 2009).
