Rio Vista Brand
Fancy Bartlett Pears
Ruble Orchard · Sacramento River, California · circa 1900–1920s
Rio Vista Brand · Ruble Orchard · Mabel J. Ruble & Mary E. McKinnon · Net Weight 46 lbs
Rio Vista Brand Crate Label
A Family, a Ranch,
and the California Delta
This vibrant chromolithograph crate label is more than commercial packaging — it is a window into the agricultural world of California’s Sacramento River Delta at the turn of the twentieth century. The Ruble-McKinnon Ranch, situated on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River opposite the town of Rio Vista, was celebrated above all for its Bartlett pears, and labels such as this one carried the ranch’s reputation to markets across the region.
The label’s proud designation — Capital of the California Netherlands — reflects the Delta’s identity as a reclaimed tidal landscape, engineered through the labor of Chinese and other immigrant workers into some of California’s most fertile farmland. Rio Vista stood at the heart of this transformation, and the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch was among its notable operations.
The Ruble-McKinnon Ranch produced alfalfa, asparagus, potatoes, and other crops but was especially known for its pears.
— McKinnon and Ruble Families Papers, UC Davis Library Archives and Special CollectionsThe physician at the center of this story, Aloysius John McKinnon (1870–1933), was born in San Francisco to Daniel and Catherine MacDonald McKinnon. Around 1890, the young McKinnon joined his family’s San Francisco lumber and shipping firm, MacDonald and McKinnon — a business rooted in the same coastal commerce that defined California’s nineteenth-century economy. A decade later, while pursuing his medical degree at the University of California Medical Department in San Francisco, he married Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ruble (1875–1916), the eldest surviving heir to the estate of Delta rancher Lewis Cass Ruble. McKinnon received his medical degree in 1903, and the following year he and Lizzie relocated to Rio Vista, where he opened a practice on Front Street and later from an office in their home.
The land that became the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch had been held by Lewis Cass Ruble, whose son William maintained the property after his father’s death. Around 1905, McKinnon took over management of the ranch on behalf of his wife and her half-sister Mabel — the same two women whose names appear on this label. Balancing the demands of a medical practice with the rhythms of Delta agriculture, McKinnon also served as a founder and officer of the Brannan Island Reclamation District, helping to engineer the very landscape that made the region’s remarkable productivity possible.
- Born in San Francisco to Daniel & Catherine MacDonald McKinnon
- Joined family firm MacDonald and McKinnon, lumber & shipping, circa 1890
- Enrolled in UC Medical Department, San Francisco
- Married Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ruble, 1900, while studying medicine
- Received medical degree, 1903
- Relocated to Rio Vista, 1904; practiced medicine on Front Street
- Assumed management of Ruble-McKinnon Ranch, circa 1905
- Founder and officer, Brannan Island Reclamation District
- Born in California; eldest surviving heir to Lewis Cass Ruble
- Her father’s landholdings became the basis for the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch
- Married Aloysius John McKinnon, 1900
- Co-owner of the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch alongside half-sister Mabel J. Ruble
- Named as grower on the Rio Vista Brand crate label
- Delta rancher whose landholdings on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River formed the foundation of the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch
- After his death, son William Ruble maintained the property
- Circa 1905, management passed to Dr. McKinnon on behalf of Lizzie and Mabel
McKinnon and Ruble
Families Papers
Spanning 48.9 linear feet and covering the years 1890 to 1984, this collection documents the life of Aloysius John McKinnon, the Ruble family of his wife Lizzie, and the lives of their children as connected to the family’s Rio Vista home and ranch near the Sacramento River. The papers offer an intimate record of rural life, professional medicine, land stewardship, and community leadership in a region that was itself still being shaped from marshland into agricultural prosperity.
Personal letters, biographical records, and family correspondence tracing the McKinnon and Ruble family histories from San Francisco to the Sacramento River Delta.
Land deeds, estate documents, financial papers, and legal records documenting the management and inheritance of the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch across multiple generations.
Family portraits, views of Rio Vista, the Sacramento River, the Ruble-McKinnon Ranch, and San Francisco — captured in a wide variety of photographic processes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Tangible objects and printed ephemera from daily life in the Delta — illuminating the material culture of ranching, medicine, and community in early twentieth-century California.
Cartographic records of the Sacramento River Delta landscape, land holdings, and the reclamation districts that transformed tidal marshland into productive agricultural territory.
Records of the Brannan Island Reclamation District and items related to the University of California, Saint Gertrude’s Academy, and Saint Mary’s College.
University of California,
Davis Library
Archives and Special Collections at UC Davis Library preserves and provides access to unique primary source materials documenting the history of the University, the surrounding region, and California’s rich agricultural and social heritage. The McKinnon and Ruble Families Papers is one of many collections that illuminate the lives of ordinary Californians whose stories might otherwise be lost.
An online exhibition and finding aid for the McKinnon and Ruble Families Papers are available through the UC Davis Library website and the Online Archive of California.
View the Online Exhibition