Then & Now: 'Welcome to Paradise'

The palm trees on Bridge Street and around the Plaza Park were planted by Fair Oaks matriarch Emma (Madam) Buffum. Recall the burning Buffum mansion and the story about the Robinson-Buffum Building. The Buffum family arrived in Fair Oaks in 1902 and Madam Buffum died in 1915. That gives the date interval when the palms were planted. I dropped a hint in the last installment featuring the Slocum-Gore store where the palm trees are freshly planted. Since the old wooden store burned in 1909 and it's clear in the old photo that Fair Oaks had electricity and telephone service in the Village (1909 and 1909 and 1906 respectively), we can figure the palms were planted about 1908. Madam Buffum enlisted the school children and the Fair Oaks Woman's Thursday Club to plant the Bridge Street palms, and had her son Joseph Buffum use the hired help from the Robinson-Buffum building to plant the ones around Plaza Park.

So, Eve gets the historian award. Yes, the palms are over 100 years old. And, a bonus point for her observation that the palm trees are all over Fair Oaks and other eastern Sacramento settlements. The colonists were promised a sub-tropical climate so they ought to have palm trees. In fact, if you spot an old palm tree, you can figure that an old home was once (and possibly still is) close to the tree. Next time you walk or drive up Sacramento Street past the old Methodist Church, look in the churchyard for the palms.

The trees on Bridge Street just over the river from the train station and the old Fair Oaks Bridge were an inviting message, "welcome to paradise."

Original Question:

Everyone has seen the palm trees surrounding Plaza Park. You may have also noticed the thicker trunked palm trees on Bridge Street leading to the old Fair Oaks Bridge. How old are they? And for bonus points, who planted them?

For more on the history of Fair Oaks, . For even more, check out the Fair Oaks: Then & Now topic page.