KHTS Radio Santa Clarita Radio – Santa Clarita News
On October 9, 1866, George Blum, founder of the historic Blum Ranch in Acton, was born in Beggingen, Switzerland.
Blum first immigrated to America in 1880, then returned to Switzerland a few years later.
In 1887, he came back to the United States, this time leading a group of Swiss travelers that included his future wife, Magdalena Greutman.
The couple married on February 6, 1889, in Chicago before heading west to California.
In Los Angeles, George worked as a stonecutter on the original Los Angeles County Courthouse, known as the Red Stone Courthouse.
Two years later, in 1891, he filed homestead papers for 160 acres in Aliso Canyon, laying the foundation for what would become Blum Ranch.
A decade later, in 1901, he relinquished 118.82 acres under the Forest Reserve Act of 1899, adjusting the boundaries of the newly formed Angeles National Forest.
The family built their working ranch on the remaining 40 acres, crafting a two-room stone home with a dirt floor, hand-dug wells, and cultivating livestock, fruit trees, vegetables, and grapes for wine.
George continued commuting to Los Angeles by train to work as a stonemason while the ranch steadily grew.
George and Magdalena raised six children: George Jr., William (Bill), Frieda, Alma, Emma, and Bertha.
They secured water rights in Aliso and Gleason Canyons, constructing underground dams and handmade cement pipes to irrigate the ranch.
Between 1910 and 1911, the Blums planted their first orchards, including 1,200 pear and apple trees.
In 1893, George Sr. began keeping bees, starting with just nine hives.
By 1915, the ranch maintained up to 500 hives, producing comb honey that became a major source of income.
A successful honey harvest that year funded completion of the large rock house they began building in 1912. The family celebrated their move into the new home in 1916.
George Blum Sr. died July 31, 1932. He was
In 1953, George Jr.’s daughter, Elizabeth Blum, married her high school sweetheart, Ray Billet.
Together they carried on the family legacy, maintaining about 60 acres planted with 1,000 pear trees, 5,500 peaches (including Ray’s hybrid variety “Blum’s Beauty”), and 3 acres of lilacs.
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After five generations, the Blum family sold the ranch in 2018 to the Ziegler family, who renamed it “Bloom Ranch” in tribute to its founders.
The Zieglers introduced sustainable farming practices before selling the property in 2023 to Dr. Bill Releford, an Inglewood-based podiatrist and Oklahoma native who grew up farming.
Releford, a graduate of Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine and a Detroit-trained surgeon, now carries on the Blum family’s agricultural heritage.
More than 130 years after George Blum first broke ground in Aliso Canyon, Bloom Ranch continues to produce fruit and flowers, today standing proudly as Los Angeles County’s largest Black-owned ranch.
To read yesterday’s Today in SCV History, click here.
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