The concept of 'colonies' is an alien one to us in the 21st century.  So it's important to remember that many of the communities that we now have in the South San Joaquin valley were once nothing more than that.  When I was doing historical background for these pages, I ran across a number of such 'failed' colonies, including one called 'Sunflower' that was in the same local area as Arvin and Lamont.  It lay to the northeast of Lamont and over near what is now Edison.  The Sunflower Colony was not well received for whatever reason and today all vestiges of its existence are gone.

Living in Lamont as I do, if I want to go to Bakersfield I jump into one of my three vehicles and head that way.  I can do this because of automobiles, good roads, and the expendable income that allows me to make such a 'pleasure trip'.   Roll back the clock 100 years and all three of those items are in limited supply in the area.  As a consequence, farming interests, mining companies, and oil companies often created or promoted these 'camps' or colonies, and depending on circumstances, some of them grew up to be recognizable communities.  I think DiGiorgio is an excellent example of just such a happenstance. 

In 1969, during my sophomore year Arvin High School, for my English class project I did a map of the county and located on it all the old camps and business sites I could recall.  There were dozens of them.  Mr. Laramee thought it was clever of me and required a lot of work; I got an 'A' on that project.  The fact was that I knew most of it from memory of camps I'd been to with my dad or brother to see relatives or friends.  They were strung out from Arvin to Fresno.  Many of you will recall camps with names like Pitts, Scroggins, Blackburn, Frick, etc.  Today they have either grown and survived, or they disappeared like the short-handled hoe.

In any event, as you try to figure out the 'why' of Arvin-Lamont and its environs, hold the idea of colonies, camps, crossroads communities, and proximity of essential services in your mind as to why certain places sprang up, grew and thrived, or simply died out as the times changed.