Hadley Fruit Orchards is a California landmark. Free samples, roadside signs and healthy products turned it into a multimillion-dollar empire. They also helped popularize trail mix. As a kid every trip to Palm Springs included a trip to Hadley’s.
It was started in Pasadena in 1931 by the Hadley brothers. Ernest Hadley was an agriculture graduate and had a farm in Merced. Paul was a former Souvenir and Ice -cream entrepreneur near the Grand Canyon. Together they sold dried-fruit gift packs to grocery and department stores in Southern California.
Paul Hadley and his wife, Peggy, opened a packing house in Banning in 1951.The building included a small retail shop that sold dried fruit, almonds, candied pineapple strips and hickory-smoked ham. The building burning down two years later and the Hadley’s were not insured.
Paul ended up buying pair of World War II-era tarpaper Army barracks and reopened in Cabazon on two acres of rented land. He attracted desert travelers with plywood signs offering all you can drink lemonade for 25 cents and 5lbs of dates for $1. He moved to a new store in Cabazon in the 1960’s when Interstate 10 started running through the area. He expanded, bought his own date orchards and beehives and opened up two other stores in Carlsbad and Hemet.
In 1978, Paul retired and sold the operations. In July 1999, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians purchased the stores .They started building the new store in Cabazon in 2015.
Enjoyed visiting Hadley’s. To this day, I still crave their Date Shake. You have to try it 😉