Long Beach History: Glad Farm Property’s storied roots

By Beth Hanson (March 25, 1942 – March 4, 2024)

Pictured are Mr. Thomas and his two oldest children, Richard and Chris.

Harper McCaughan is one of the City of Long Beach’s Founding Fathers, but his brother, William, first owned the property known as the Glad Farm Property, located where North Cleveland Avenue is today, and east of it, too.

Later, the land would be purchased by James B. Cable from Chicago, who would be the nearest neighbor to the Jim Quarles family, which lived near where the new Fast Pace Walk-In Clinic is located today. We know the Quarles house today as Greenvale.

Gaspar Carrubba was the next owner who farmed at the site during the truck farming heyday. He was also engaged in the fateful strawberry era.

Sinclair Floral Company

The property was later sold to John Sinclair of Sinclair Florist in Meridian, who purchased it in the late 1930s. He wanted to engage in the wholesale gladioli business, shipping the blooms from his

one-hundred-acre location. He eventually shipped close to a million blooms each season to varied points, including New York, Denver, Philadelphia and Detroit, and claimed the sandy soil and climate were ideal conditions in which to grow the flowers.

Sinclair planted the bulbs in December, January and February and began cutting and shipping in May. Approximately 50,000 bulbs are harvested in a day. He also shared that really large farms in the East may harvest fifty- to one-hundred-million in the same time frame.

Sinclair said that any dirt farmer could raise gladioli, but the difficulty lies in marketing the crop without taking too significant a loss.

He had originally come here (Long Beach) to improve his health, and possibly that fact may have influenced his decision to sell his business in 1945. He placed an ad in a national magazine, which caught the attention of an attorney in Idaho, who promptly came down here to see the property and bought it.

Two years later, in 1947, John Sinclair passed away.

Gulf Coast Glad Farm

The attorney who became a Glad farmer was Clarence Thomas, from Burley, Idaho. He and his wife, Ione, engaged in successfully growing and shipping the gladiolus until Clarence died in 1952. Two years after her husband’s death, Mrs. Thomas entered Civil Service at the Seabee Base and served as secretary to five commanding officers before retiring.

During this time, she kept the Glad Farm open, but business usually took place after her children returned home from school in the afternoons and helped the customers with their purchases. Local loyal customers didn’t seem to mind in the least, as the gladioli were the finest to be offered.

Other activities also began taking place on her vast amount of land that was very beneficial to Mrs. Thomas and to the area – the Glad Farm Riding Stables (with competitions), and also a successful Day Camp, along with that beautiful gladiolus!

The property is now the location of the Long Beach Church of Christ, Long Beach High School, football field, baseball field, junior high, First Baptist Church, St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, and Keesler Federal Credit Union.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Hanson’s column was provided courtesy of the Long Beach Historical Society. Hanson, who served as Past President of the Long Beach Historical Society, completed her Glad Farm Property legacy research before passing.