For generations, the foothills around Camino were known more for pears than apples.
That changed dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s when pear orchards were devastated by disease. According to the Apple Hill Growers Association, El Dorado County’s pear production fell from approximately 52,000 tons in 1958 to 8,435 tons in 1965.
For local farmers, the problem was existential. The orchards were productive farmland, but the crop that had sustained the agricultural community was disappearing.
One of the farmers looking for an answer was Gene Bolster, who had returned to Camino after his father, Floyd Bolster, died in 1957. Floyd had purchased a 10-acre farm in 1951 and had begun building a life around its apple trees.
Bolster and El Dorado County Agricultural Commissioner Ed Delfino traveled to Oak Glen in Southern California in 1962 to examine a successful farm-marketing operation there.
They came home with more than ideas.
They came home with a model.
The Birth of Apple Hill
In 1964, Bolster, Delfino, El Dorado County pomology specialist and farm adviser Dick Bethell, and retired Army officer Bob Tuck helped organize the local growers.
The original association consisted of 16 farms.
The idea was straightforward but innovative for its time: Instead of simply shipping agricultural products elsewhere, the growers would market the farms themselves and encourage consumers to come directly to Camino.
The name Apple Hill was coined to identify the new marketing organization and its products. A 2025 federal court decision concerning the Apple Hill trademark likewise documented that the association was formed in July 1964 by farmers in the region east of Placerville and that the name originally referred to the organization and its products, rather than a geographic area.
That distinction remains important today.
Apple Hill is a trademarked brand, not an incorporated town or officially defined geographic region. The Apple Hill Growers Association describes it as a collaboration of farms in the Camino/Fruitridge area.
A Marketing Idea That Started at the State Fair
The fledgling organization wasted little time promoting itself.
For its first major publicity effort, the growers held a press picnic in August 1964. Each participating Apple Hill family hosted a member of the news media for a meal.
Then came an unusual marketing campaign at the California State Fair.
The growers distributed approximately 50,000 paper litter bags, each featuring information about Apple Hill. Visitors who brought a bag to the farms could receive two pounds of free apples.
It was an early example of what would become Apple Hill’s signature strategy: Don’t just sell the product.
Sell the experience of coming to the farm.
The concept worked.
Apple Hill’s growers gradually expanded beyond apples and eventually added other agricultural products, bakeries, wineries, Christmas trees, flowers and visitor-oriented businesses.
The association says it now represents more than 50 farms and agricultural businesses.
From Apple Orchard to Agritourism Destination
The evolution of Apple Hill mirrors a broader transformation in El Dorado County agriculture.
What began as a response to a crop disaster became an early example of agritourism and direct-to-consumer agricultural marketing.
An El Dorado County agricultural business guide describes Apple Hill as beginning in 1964 and growing to more than 50 member farms. The guide also identifies the organization as a model of direct agricultural marketing that influenced other agricultural enterprises in the county.
Today, a trip to Apple Hill can mean picking apples, buying a pie, visiting a winery, walking through a flower farm, purchasing a Christmas tree or simply spending a fall day in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
The apple remains central to the identity, but it is no longer the whole story.
The association’s current roster includes fruit and vegetable farms, wineries, Christmas tree farms, bakeries, a brewery and other agricultural attractions.
How Many People Visit Apple Hill Today?
This is where the numbers require a little caution.
There does not appear to be a publicly posted current annual visitor count from the Apple Hill Growers Association comparable to the 750,000 figure frequently cited in agricultural literature.
However, a University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources publication reported that more than 750,000 visitors tour the Apple Hill area each year. The publication described visitors coming for activities ranging from picking fruit and purchasing farm products to cutting Christmas trees, eating at local establishments and visiting breweries, spas and wineries.
That figure provides useful perspective, but it should not be presented as a precise 2026 attendance count without more recent visitor data.
It is also worth distinguishing between an Apple Hill “visit” and unique individual tourists. A visitor who returns several times during the year could potentially account for multiple visits, depending on how the underlying number was calculated.
What can be said with confidence is that Apple Hill has become a major agritourism draw for El Dorado County and the broader Northern California region.
And its reach extends well beyond apple season.
Six Decades Later, the Original Idea Still Works
The founders were trying to save farms.
More than 60 years later, the strategy they created has become part of the identity of the Camino foothills.
The Apple Hill Growers Association has grown from its original 16 farms to more than 50 members, while the agricultural landscape surrounding it has diversified considerably. The organization says its farms now produce apples, berries, stone fruit, vegetables, wine grapes and flowers, alongside visitor experiences that include wineries, bakeries and Christmas tree farms.
Perhaps the most significant part of the story is that Apple Hill wasn’t created because someone decided El Dorado County needed a tourist attraction.
It was created because local farmers were facing an agricultural crisis and decided they had to work together.
As longtime founder Gene Bolster recalled on the association’s history page, there were about 16 farms when the organization began.
And Ed Delfino, another founder, summed up the broader significance of the experiment by calling Apple Hill an early Northern California ranch-marketing effort whose success demonstrated the potential of bringing farmers, government and the media together.
Today, when the roads around Camino fill with visitors looking for apples, cider, pies, pumpkins, wine and Christmas trees, it can be easy to forget that the destination grew out of a farming community trying to survive.
Apple Hill wasn’t born as a tourist attraction. It became one.
Sources
The primary historical information comes from the Apple Hill Growers Association, supplemented by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, El Dorado County agricultural materials and a 2025 federal court decision documenting the association’s history and trademark
