Giant Orange

The last of Highway 99 Giant Oranges has officially been squeezed off the fabled north-south highway but, pholks, it isn't quite dead yet.

Officially known as Mammoth Orange on the east side of Highway 99 in Fairmead near the Highway 152 turnoff, the landmark orange shell now sits in the City of Chowchilla corporation yard awaiting its potential resurrection, of sorts.

Just where the icon hamburger and orange juice structure will be located after restoration is still to be decided by the Chowchilla City Council and the city's development agency which purchased it from Doris and Jim Stiggins, who had owned it for about 20 years.

Kelly McManis, secretary of the Chowchilla Redevelopment Agency, said this week a number of options are still being weighed adding that the direction the city's redevelopment heads will determine where the Mammoth Orange will be located, how it will be used and other issues.

The agency paid the Stiggins about $5,000 for the former restaurant which has been the subject of hundreds of articles, photographs and documentaries of Highway 99 and especially the great San Joaquin Valley. Stiggins says the Giant Orange name was changed to Mammoth Orange in 1959 because it sounded bigger as did the change from Texas to Alaska-sized burgers. It stayed that way.

There have been several attempts to get historic designations and keep Mammoth Orange along 99 but the end officially came May 2 when a several-hour move took the Mammoth Orange on side roads and across Highway 99 Overpass 24 to the Chowchilla city yard. Right now, the Orange wouldn't pass any citrus packing inspections and most probably would be culled or sent to juice if judged on appearance.

Well pholks, I too can attest to stopping at least a couple of what once-upon-a-time were numerous Giant or Mammoth Oranges as I traveled up and down 99. The memories go way back to when I was a kid and forward to when I went to Fresno State and my weekends. It's probably been 10 years since I pulled off the highway there to get an orange juice or a burger or perhaps stop at the nearby mini-mart or store.

In recent years, the Mammoth Orange structure was used to place and receive food and drink orders with the preparation done in a connected building. Another abandoned Mammoth or Giant Orange almost directly across 99 on the southbound lanes had become an eyesore and was finally ripped away.

The northbound facility continued to refresh the memories as well as settle the appetites and thirst of Highway 99 travelers as well as maintain its status as the last-standing oversized orange eatery on the north-south roadway.
Numerous fundraisers, rallies, petition drives and other assorted moves to keep the Highway 99 landmark alive have been held but nothing could halt the eventual closure. Moving it seemed to have been the only viable option when the City of Chowchilla came to the rescue. In a way, it will be a homecoming since it was located in that city before it moved to Fairmead years ago. There is little chance it will be seen from 99, more likely signs will direct travelers to pull into the city to visit the famed structure in whatever capacity it ends up occupying.

There had been talk off moving it to a new interchange, turning it into a museum and even taking specific architecture measurements and photographs and sending them to the Library of Congress before demolition. Chowchilla's decision to buy it and then decide exactly what to do with it, seems to be to have been the best possible and most realistic option. This pholks, is redevelopment at its best.

Mammoth Oranges pre-date the Golden Arches, the clown in a box and the freckled girl in ponytails as well as the mission bell burger, hotdog, fries, taco stands and drinks, as beacons of roadway eating stops. But the long-overdue upgrading the Central Valley stretch of Highway 99 resulted in the plucking of the final orange from the pop culture landscape. The several-mile stretch of 99 where hundreds of thousands of motorists continue north or south or head west to the Bay Area is being converted into a full-scale freeway.

Anyhow, for now, the Mammoth Orange has ridden off into the sunset, but it may not be too long before the overgrown citrus blossoms once again. Somehow, somewhere.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com