watch live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. julia: we are standing in front of the turtle bay exploration park and museum in redding, california. come inside as we look at an event -- exhibit that shares the agricultural history of the region. i think it is really important for us to remember that agriculture is one of the backbones of california. even in far northern california, where it is mountainous and the trained does not really lend itself to a lot of big ag. it does lend itself to pockets in a community that is close to the land. bay expirationle park's explanation home. land,e in "rooted in this

host: which is a temporary exhibition we have the spring. i have been in redding 20 years. i have always known redding is an agricultural area. shasta county is an agricultural county. we have a lot of great photos of agricultural scenes and we thought it was time to do a big exhibition that celebrates the history and modern practices of agriculture in our area. standing one are win to land. -- wintu land. before european settlers got here, the native population lived in tune with the land or they did not cultivate crops in the way we think of growing crops. they cultivated the natural

environment to their benefit. back tow willow trees make baskets. but their population size was right for the area. this particular spot was an amazing salmon fishery at the time. they lived off the land and lived well before white people got here in 1844. before that, people had been driving cattle and exploring through, but they had not actually settled. wintu population and other populations were heavily influenced by that. we want to celebrate the fact that these people were here and used the land. mortar.a wintu copper the baskets are for carrying crops. to celebrate the fact that these people are here still. but we are not really talking about them when we talk about

the agricultural component of shasta county, because that is very much a year american institution imposed on this land. the first year american settler b.shasta county was pearson redding. 1844.n arrives in he had people arrive and start cultivating. he brought in cattle and started to do livestock industry, as well as cultivating and growing crops. is aew grapes here, which lot of people did not realize that something had been going on since 1844. redding comes in, sets up shop, he starts his rancho and begin selling land to other people. on thes another rancho other side of the river. then, the gold rush strikes in 1849.

redding, who is friends with sutter, finds out what is going on with the gold,area has the potential, and goes to clear creek with native people and discovers gold himself on what bar." known as "redding's but ag was here before gold. we tend to celebrate the mining history of the area and forget about the roots, which are agricultural. adding, one california became state, was still trying to make sure his rancho got register. but he had to register his cattle brand with the state of california. in 1850, well into the 20th century, that system for registering grantors to get this leather cow-shaped head and stamp the brand on it and fill out the back with information. we have redding's brand and others in here to talk about the history.

there is a wonderful book of all registries, which is really great historical research. one of the things we discovered through doing this exhibition is something we knew from living here. this is really a livestock area. beef range cattle and cattle today. were beinge hides shipped back east to boston. they were very valuable at the time. this area underwent a lot of different changes. fruits became a big deal, especially in the south in the anderson and happy valley area. capital of prune northern california, at one point. all of an changes that sudden, we can irrigate land. we can get more cattle, growing

of hay and also in a year-round pasture. pasture, andy slowly, we are back to beef bigle, which is one of our exports out of the area. second only to trees, timber, which is an agricultural product, but you cannot eat it -- we only talk about food in this exhibition. cattle is our biggest export. our biggest dollar producer for our culture in shasta county. one of the things we did was a single list paper articles and old names like late and early 20th, trying to get a handle on information of the various crops we were looking at. offound this 1888 listing great growers in california. these are only people who registered. all of these people are growing grapes.

we only had 135 thousand people in the county at this point. commercial grape growing had in successful for years by the 1920's. in 1960, 100% of the great acreage reported was devoted to wine, but it was only 10 acres. so growing collapsed, but then it expanded again. tois not very many compared other places in california, but it is a growing industry, so it is like a new prize. bees.r success story is not just tiny, but bees. we of course have them for pollination purposes and for honey since i got here, but the startede industry that because of a man named homer park. bees whenselling queen

he was in high school. he began the industry are selling queen bees. his extended family, including his daughter and husband, are one of shasta county's big industries. apiary products, including bees and beehives are a big economic driver. they rent hives to people who grow crops that have to be pollinated ids -- by bees. they trade honey for people for permission to put bees on their property. and every day, they are raising and shipping out queen bees. starteralso purchase

packages for them to get beehives. it is wonderful that this technology that was designed by homer park and honed over time as to what they are using to sellable queen bees. so they let us a lot of a package.- bee that is a picture of a good starter hive that they will send to someone who has hives and wants to restart their hives. get fresh bees every few years. antique wax knives. they used a very lightweight beekeeper vale, because they are working glove less with bees. very gently. the bees trust them to sort out the queens and pull them out for

shipping. i hope any guess that comes through gets a good snapshot of what northern california is in terms of agriculture and our region in redding. themselves here and see the importance of the neighbors who are agricultural lists, even if they are not. it is a little microcosm of california, the california story. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] . >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to redding, california to learn about its rich history. learn more about writing and other spots --redding redding and other stops on our tour on c-span.org. coming up next on american history tv, a group of historians discuss their roles as expert witnesses for court cases on abortion, native american treaties, gay rights, and affirmative action. they also examine how the courts value history anev