Fruits of his labor: Felix Gillet's legacy continues

Falconi was asked by City Manager Sean Grayson and City Planner Amy Wolfson to prepare a report detailing Gillet’s contributions to the horticulture of Nevada City and beyond. Thus, Falconi set to work, conducting extensive research which taught him much about the French man who literally changed the landscape of the town.

“Gillet is here from the late 1850s; ’58 until around 1910 when he died,” Falconi explained. “He was about 16 or 17 (when he came here), but he didn’t start this (tree) stuff until about 1870. He was a barber.”

Through his research, Falconi found that Gillet likely came to the area for the same reason everyone else did: he was lured by the promise of striking it rich. It can be determined that Gillet’s luck in the gold rush weren’t as fulfilling as he had thought. With that, he returned to his home country and studied horticulture for a year.

“What he does is he goes back to France and studies in France for about a year,” said Falconi, “and then comes back and buys that piece of property up there on the top of the hill (what is now Nursery Street). And nobody wanted it. Then he sends to France $3,000 for trees and stuff and plants them.”

Thanks to the methods of preparing seed and rootstock, Gillet was able to have his plant orders shipped to California where he sold them to anyone who would buy them.

Falconi said that Gillet was mainly into nuts and fruits, and not so much into ornamentals. He even dabbled in grapes, which evidently didn’t take off as healthily as the trees.

“In Gillet’s day if it didn’t grow a fruit or a vegetable it wasn’t worth fooling with. It was only when people started to have money that they wanted to do ornamentals. Evergreens are considered ornamental.”

The literal fruits of Gillet’s labor can be seen everywhere in town, Falconi said.

“They’re everywhere if you start to look. All it is is identifying the heritage we had. My column at the end of my (report) is ‘I believe we should endeavor to treat our unique trees, shrubs, fruits in the same way we do our Mother Lode architecture.’ Why shouldn’t we?”

He argues that much planning and activism has gone into maintaining the historical structures within Nevada City, and the way he sees it the same attention should be paid to the prolific contributions Gillet and his successor Charlie Parsons brought to the region.

“At one time there were a lot of apples and pears here. A lot. Where Nevada Union High School is, there was a pear orchard. And up on the hill where Sierra College is was an apple orchard. And all Colfax Highway had fruit on it all the way from Loma Rica Ranch to Bierwagen’s. The reason it was there was because the railroad came through from the main line. So they could ship it. That’s why those places thrived.”

Falconi wants people to know more about the greenery that surrounds them, and perhaps create more of an awareness as to what lies on one’s property and the potential history behind it. He’d like to see something printed that could serve as a reference for those looking to identify trees and such.

“I think it’s an awareness and I think that people will be aware of what they’ve got if they’ve got a little pamphlet of what they’ve got that shows the basic trees. They’re everywhere. “

In the eventual case one of Gillet’s historical trees should start to wither, Falconi said: “What I recommended is if you have one of these trees and it’s dying, and it’s a hazard, what we should try to do is have an arborist propagate it.”

Though it’s his job to do so, Falconi has become passionate about keeping Gillet’s name and spirit alive through the many roots that passed through his hands.

“What we’re doing is identifying these so people will be able to perpetuate them for years to come.”