Standing across the street from the Hemet Stock Farm entrance, I raised my camera and composed the shot. The symmetry of the old arch framed perfectly between two massive pepper trees, the white X-pattern gates closed tight, a faded "Private Property" sign hanging at the center. A lone abandoned shopping cart rested to the right — an almost poetic symbol of neglect. I shot it in black and white because some subjects simply demand it. Color would have softened the edges of the sadness. Black and white tells the truth.
What I didn't fully appreciate in that moment was just how much history I was pointing my lens at.
According to the City of Hemet, businessman W. Whittier established a stock farm in Hemet in the early 1900s, called the Hemet Stock Farm, with a half-mile racetrack as part of his efforts to improve the town, which included founding the Bank of Hemet and developing other local infrastructure. Whittier — wasn't about to be outdone. Whittier partnered with Edward L. Mayberry, a man with a passion for trotter horses, to build a competing facility. Financial troubles eventually forced Mayberry out, and Whittier took full control, acquiring both the land and the racing stock. It was a very California story — ambition, competition, and money all tangled together from the very beginning.
By 1909, a full facility had been completed on a parcel bounded by Oakland and Devonshire Avenues and State and Gilbert Streets — a racetrack, boarding stables, grandstand, and a manager's residence that still stands as the oldest structure in Hemet. Originally painted all in white, it was, by all accounts, Whittier's crown jewel. A forty-acre showcase of what a prosperous valley town could build when it put its mind to it.
At the Hemet Stock Farm, the early years were nothing short of remarkable. In 1910, a trotter named Wilbur Lou — bred right there on the property — set a world record for yearling stallion trotters, going on to break track records at multiple venues across the country. That same era saw the first airplane to land in Hemet — a 1910 Deperdussin monoplane — touch down on the track in 1913. Motorcycle races drew crowds of 2,000 people to a town that barely counted 1,000 residents. For a brief, golden moment, this forty-acre farm put Hemet on the map in ways that went far beyond horses.
Community members who responded to a local Facebook post about the Hemet Stock Farm paint a vivid and surprisingly personal picture of the farm's later decades. One woman recalled her uncle running the property in the late 1960s, describing summer BBQs on the grounds and the ranch in beautiful, well-kept condition. Her uncle went on to become a successful horse trainer at Del Mar and Santa Anita — the kind of career that gets its foundation in places exactly like this. Another commenter remembered the Seeley family still keeping brood mares there well into the 1970s, with foals playing in the front pastures on warm valley mornings. Others recalled barn dances, Ramona Pageant first-nighter parties, and even a Sheryl Crow music video filmed somewhere on the grounds. The farm never quite stopped being a gathering place, even as it aged.
But time and neglect are patient forces, and they eventually won. The grand pepper trees that once lined the property — trees that locals remember as defining the entire character of the Hemet valley skyline — are mostly gone now.
Efforts in the early 2000s to purchase the Hemet Stock Farm property and convert it into a heritage park were outbid by a private developer whose mixed-use plans — which would have retained some historic buildings and created a heritage park component — ultimately stalled when the real estate market collapsed. Today, the farm sits protected from outright demolition by historic zone permit requirements, but that protection only goes so far. Recent community concern about condominium development on the site suggests the clock may still be ticking.
When I pressed the shutter that day, I was thinking mostly about light and composition — the way the morning shadows stretched across the cracked asphalt, the texture of weathered wood against the sky. But photographs have a way of becoming something more than what you intended when you took them. This one turned out to be about memory, loss, and a community still quietly grieving something it hasn't quite let go of yet.
The gate is closed. Whether it stays that way or gets bulldozed entirely remains an open question.
Hemet Stock Farm - photo taken January 2026 on 35mm Black & White film
| Tag Name | Data |
|---|---|
| Title | Hemet Stock Farm |
| Image Description | The gated entrance to the abandoned Hemet stock farm stands weathered and closed, a forgotten remnant of California's agricultural past |
| Keywords | 35mm film, Ilford FP4 Plus, abandoned, abandoned farm, black and white, black and white film, black and white photography, derelict property, documentary photography, farm gate, farm sign, film photography, hemet california, hemet stock farm, mailbox, monochrome, nostalgic, overgrown entrance, private property sign, ranch entrance, rural decay, rural gate, shopping cart, stock farm, urban decay, vintage, weathered gate |
| Copyright | Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved |
| Artist | ExpertPhoto.com |
| Make | Canon |
| Camera Model Name | Canon EOS-3 |
| Lens Model | EF24-70mm f/2.8L II USM |
| Focal Length | 40.00mm |
| Shutter Speed Value | 1/800 second |
| Aperture Value | 8.00 |
| ISO | 125 |
| Date/Time Original | Thursday January 15, 2026 11:20am |
| City | Hemet |
| State | California |
| Country | United States |
| GPS Altitude | 480 meters (1574.8 feet) above sea level |
| GPS Latitude | 33.7512377166675 |
| GPS Longitude | -116.973848186622 |
| Map | Google Map Link |
