A 1902 Whittier Citrus Packinghouse Turned Antique Mall
12301 Whittier Boulevard, Whittier, CA 90602
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free admission to browse. Costs depend on what visitors buy.
Access
Limited Access
Multi-floor antique mall with stairs between levels; aisles can be narrow
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1902 · Last Citrus Packinghouse in Whittier · California Citrus Industry History
The Whittier Citrus Association packinghouse was constructed in 1902 at the corner of Penn Street and Whittier Boulevard. An 1904 expansion made it one of the largest packing plants in California, with a main packing house, a separate lemon curing plant, and an office building. By 1906 the operation was shipping 650 carloads of oranges and 250 carloads of lemons annually by rail.
The building survived the long decline of Southern California's citrus industry. It is now the last substantial remnant of Whittier's once-major role in that industry. The main structure was converted into King Richard's Antique Center in 1979, marketed as one of California's largest antique malls.
The operation today fills four floors with roughly 302 dealer booths totaling 57,000 square feet. The structure retains its early twentieth-century interior bones — exposed timber framing, freight-elevator infrastructure, the basement cold-storage rooms used for fruit handling.
Local accounts collected during the antique mall era mention two industrial deaths from the packinghouse period: a worker said to have died after being accidentally locked in the basement freezer room, and a second worker said to have died from machinery falling onto him on the ground floor. These accounts circulate in dealer and staff folklore. Independent verification from Whittier newspaper archives or California workplace fatality records has not been located in available sources; the deaths should be treated as oral tradition rather than documented history.
Sources
King Richard's Antique Center occupies an industrial building that has been continuously occupied for more than a century. Staff and dealer accounts collected during the antique mall era describe a recurring set of phenomena.
Dark figures have been described at closing time — most often along the bottom floor near the area where a former staircase has been removed. The blank space has drawn the most attention, and several customers have reported cold spots there. The cleaning crew has reportedly had members quit after one cleaner described seeing a dark figure watching her from a corner of the basement.
Objects for sale are reported to roll or fly off display surfaces. Hanging pictures fall, sometimes landing several feet from where they were displayed. Battery-powered or unplugged electrical appliances have reportedly sounded off without explanation.
Dealer folklore attributes part of this activity to the citrus-era industrial history of the building, with the basement freezer room and the lower floor cited most often. Another strand of dealer folklore holds that the antiques themselves carry residual presence — that estate-sale inventory rotating through the booths brings its own activity that the building merely hosts.
Reports cluster more heavily between October and the end of the holiday season. The pattern may reflect heightened attention during the haunted-tourism months as much as anything intrinsic to the building. Staff described the activity as benign and uninterested in confrontation.
Browse a 57,000-square-foot antique center occupying the last surviving large citrus packinghouse in Whittier. The four-floor building dates to 1902 and contains more than 300 dealer booths. The connection to the dark-tourism market is contextual — staff and dealer folklore — rather than any formal haunted programming.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Los Angeles, CA
The Cypress Park neighborhood of Los Angeles has been served by a public library branch since 1920. The original branch building — a Georgian Revival structure designed by architect Harry S. Bent — opened in 1927 at the corner of Cypress Avenue and Pepper Street. The current branch at 1150 Cypress Avenue opened in 2003. The 1927 building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 and now operates as the Cypress Park Clubhouse.
Clarksville, AR
The Bunch-Walton Post No. 22 American Legion Hut is a historic two-story structure constructed from native stone in Clarksville, Arkansas. Built on a raised foundation on what was formerly an island in Spadra Creek, the building displays distinctive Normanesque castellated architecture inspired by European military structures from World War I. The structure serves as a veterans hall and historical landmark.
Asheville, NC
The Basilica of St. Lawrence is a Spanish Renaissance Revival Catholic church completed in 1909, designed by Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino with R.S. Smith. Its 58-by-82-foot freestanding tile dome is reported as the largest of its kind in North America. Pope John Paul II elevated the church to minor basilica status in 1993.