Editing Apple Valley, California (section)

==History==
For centuries, Apple Valley was populated by [[Shoshonean]], [[Northern Paiute|Paiute]], [[Vanyume]], [[Chemehuevi]], and [[Serrano (people)|Serrano]] who were attracted to the water and vegetation around the Mojave River. The [[Mojave people]] came later and were the tribal group encountered in 1542 by a detachment of Coronado's men. These were the first Spanish to come to the Mojave desert.

[[Pedro Fages]] came through the area in 1772, looking for deserters. Father [[Francisco Garcés]] spent time in the area in 1776. He was on good terms with local tribes. He killed one of his mules to feed a group of starving Vanyumes. Garcés established a trail across the Mojave to the Colorado River passing through the Apple Valley area.

The area was explored by various Spanish gold seekers in the 18th and 19th centuries. [[Jedediah Smith]] established the Old Spanish Trail through the southern Mojave and Cajon Pass. Smith was in the area in 1826 and again in 1827.<ref name="Ellsworh A Sylvester 1974, pg 125">Apple Valley-Crossroads of the Desert by Ellsworh A Sylvester, San Bernardino County Museum Commemorative Edition, Allen=Greendale Publishers, Redlands, CA. 1974, pg 125</ref>

Throughout the 19th century, Apple Valley became a thoroughfare of people traveling to Southern California for various reasons. Ute horse thieves, led by Chief Walkara, brought through an estimated 100,000 horses from their raids on the Lugo Rancho and [[San Gabriel Mission]].

In 1848, members of the [[Mormon Battalion]], mustered out of the U.S. Army after constructing the first wagon road across the southwest to San Diego and up to Los Angeles, brought 135 mules and the first wagon through the Cajon Pass up through the Mojave River Valley on the way to the [[Salt Lake Valley]]. Battalion leader [[Jefferson Hunt]] and a crew of cowboys followed the trail with the first cattle drive from Southern California to hungry members of [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] in present-day Utah. Hunt led a Latter-day Saint group of settlers to the San Bernardino Valley in 1851.

In 1885, the railroad came northward through the Cajon Pass and established a train stop, calling it Victor (Victorville) on the Mojave River in the area then known as Mormon Crossing. John Brown helped build some of the first roads through Apple Valley, opening up freight and stagecoach travel from the mining camps at Gold Mountain and Holcomb Valley to the railroad. In the 1860s, LaFayette Mecham built the wagon road, a short-cut across the desert, now known as Stoddard Wells Road. Over the next few decades, Victorville boomed as the commercial center of the area with gold refineries, quarries, and dance halls and saloons, while Apple Valley remained more pastoral with ranches and apple orchards.

The Apple Valley name was officially recognized when a post office was established in 1949.<ref name=gudde>{{cite book|first=Erwin|last=Gudde| author2 =William Bright |title=California Place Names|year=2004|edition=Fourth|publisher=University of California Press|page=15|isbn=978-0-520-24217-3}}</ref>

One well-known apple orchard was owned by Max Ihmsen, publisher of the ''Los Angeles Examiner'' newspaper. In 1915, he developed {{convert|320|acre|km2}} of apples and pears. The fame of Apple Valley spread as Ihmsen's fruit won many agricultural awards.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.applevalley.org/Index.aspx?page=587 |title=Town of Apple Valley : Through the Decades |publisher=Applevalley.org |access-date=February 28, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140628233305/http://www.applevalley.org/Index.aspx?page=587 |archive-date=June 28, 2014 }}</ref> In the late 1930s, Ihmsen's son-in-law, Cal Godshall, took over the business operations and made the ranch famous as the birthplace of California college rodeo with the first intercollegiate rodeo competition held in the United States.

Apple farming in the area started to decline about the time Ihmsen Ranch fruit production was at its prime. Water rates shot up with a switch to electric pumps. World War I took owners and workers away with the draft. During the Great Depression, many families left the mostly agricultural area looking for work. Washington and British Columbia apple growers had lower prices because they shipped their produce by river transportation, whereas Apple Valley apples were transported by rail or by truck. A series of outbreaks of a virulent fungal infection coupled with frost, heat, and hail in 1944, 1945, and 1946 ended commercial production.<ref name="Ellsworh A Sylvester 1974, pg 125" />

A small orchard was maintained on the grounds of the [[Apple Valley Inn]] until it closed in 1986.

Apple Valley was home to [[Roy Rogers]] and [[Dale Evans]], whose museum was first established in Apple Valley (in 1967) before the museum was relocated to Victorville in 1976. In 2003, the museum moved again, to [[Branson, Missouri]]. The move was made in hopes of reaching more fans;<ref>Victor Valley Daily Press. February 14, 2009, http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/museum_10892___article.html/roy_rogers.html?orderby=TimeStampDescending&oncommentsPage=2&showRecommendedOnly=0#slComments{{dead link|date=October 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> however, the museum closed for financial reasons on December 12, 2009.<ref>Special Announcement from Roy Rogers Jr. http://www.royrogers.com/announcement.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161107234116/http://www.royrogers.com/announcement.html |date=November 7, 2016 }}</ref>