General, History, Historic House, Historical Society
The Ehmann Home was built in 1911 by Edwin Ehmann in the Craftsman Bungalow style. The architect was John Morton of Chico. Today it is the only surviving reminder of the once grand Ehmann Olive Company presence in Butte County. The story of the Ehmann home begins with Freda Ehmann and her olives. She is considered the "mother" of the modern olive canning industry. Her olive curing business began with her desperate effort to develop a market for the olives from her 20-acre orchard. Until this time, olives had been grown primarily for oil; olive curing and canning had not been reliably successful. Through experimentation and stringent quality control, she developed a reliable curing system.