Flower farms, particularly those growing chrysanthemums (pictured here at the O’Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm), played a vital role in the local economy through the mid-20th century. | Andrew Brodhead
The following is an excerpt from the 1/21/26 Stanford Report:
By Solveig Knapstad
Through the Forgotten Flowers initiative, Stanford researchers and local organizations are uncovering how small farms on university lands shaped the Bay Area’s flower industry from the 1890s onward.
While conducting research on Stanford land leases, University Archaeologist Laura Jones made a fascinating discovery: The Bay Area’s cut flower industry got its start on the Farm.
“I was looking into a university practice that began with Jane Stanford leasing small farms to earn income for the university. One of my colleagues gave me a map of Stanford from the 1950s that showed leases to flower growers, most of whom were Asian American,” she said. “They were growing flowers where the shopping center is today, where the research park is today, and where Escondido Village is today. It was amazing how many farms there were in places that are unrecognizable as such now.”
A forgotten crop
One of the farms Jones came across belonged to a Chinese American flower grower in Palo Alto whose son, George Chin, is now one of the founding directors of the Chinatown History and Culture Association.
According to Chin, many Bay Area flower farmers got their start on the Stanford campus, but their stories have been overlooked and underdocumented in historical accounts of the region – something Jones has found as well.
“When we talk about the history of agriculture in the Bay Area,” Jones said, “there’s a lot of literature about orchards and a bit on wineries, but there’s not much about flower growing, which was huge in the first half of the 20th century.”
Jones, the executive director of Stanford Heritage Services, which stewards the university’s cultural and biological land-based resources, is working with Chin and other community organizations including the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project and the Bay Area Chrysanthemum Growers Association on the Forgotten Flowers project, an effort to preserve the legacies of the Asian American flower growers who leased Stanford lands between the years of 1890-1960. These farms produced crops, including chrysanthemums, that played a vital role in the region’s economy before dwindling in the late 1900s due to factors including urbanization, lower-cost imports, and the burgeoning technology scene.
Stanford’s Office of Community Engagement is providing support for the project.
“We’re learning more about the distribution of agriculture in the Bay Area and this really important moment in Chinese American and Japanese American history, which is also tied in some ways to U.S. immigration and other land policies – it was illegal for a period of time in some cities for Asians to own land,” said Jones. “So if you couldn’t buy land, it was much easier to rent a small acreage and farm it really intensively with flowers.”
Mapping the Bay Area
One of the main outcomes of the project will be a digital exhibit that lets users explore a map of historical data supplemented by family interviews – a sprawling interactive archive of historical material chronicling the stories and locations of flower growers across the Bay Area.
English and American studies major Kaylee Chan is an undergraduate research intern on the project, where her primary focus has been exploring historical archives from the 19th through 20th centuries and compiling photos, maps, and written records to display on the interactive map she’s developing.
“It’s so important for students to have opportunities to explore local history and to engage in cultural, historical, and literary research,” Chan said. When the map is complete, she added, “you’ll see how historical research can be implemented and presented in a very practical way for people to look at, interact with, and enjoy.”
For example, viewers will be able to search for the Chin family’s former farm on El Camino and click through photos of their family and the nursery. George Chin’s personal narrative about his ancestors will supplement archival documents, further chronicling their experience and impact on the industry.
A legacy of remembrance
A condominium complex now stands on the former site of the Chin family’s nursery, and development has likewise taken the place of other flower farms. But project leaders hope the Forgotten Flowers project will help the stories of the farmers and their impact on the region live on.
“Our vision for this project extends beyond collecting oral histories,” Chin said. “My goal is to build meaningful connections and collaborations across communities and generations – at Stanford, in San Francisco, and across borders to China. We’ve been in conversation with museum curators in Doumen and Zhuhai, China, where many of these flower growers originally came from, to explore the creation of an overseas Chinese history exhibit that would bring together the histories of these families on both sides of the Pacific.”
Chinese Historical & Cultural Project