Orchard owner Gilcrease dies at 87

Monday, Dec. 1, 2003 | 10:40 a.m.

Well into his 80s, Las Vegas farmer Ted Gilcrease felt he had a purpose in life -- to continue running his pick-and-pay farm in northwest Las Vegas.

"People ask why I don't buy a yacht and see the world,' Gilcrease told the Sun for a June 20, 2001, story. "I've visited Alaska, Hawaii and other places -- I've seen the world.

"But hundreds of people here have told me how important this farm is to them ... It's more than just the fruit and vegetables I sell. It is recreation for them to come here with their children and get away from the city. I feel I have a purpose here."

John "Ted" Gilcrease, the son of farmers who in the early 20th century started what now is one of the last working farms in Las Vegas, died Friday following a lengthy illness. He was 87.

Visitation will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday at Palm Mortuary, 7400 W. Cheyenne Ave. Services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Christ Church Episcopal, 2100 S. Maryland Parkway.

Well into his 80s, Gilcrease spent his days supervising Gilcrease Orchards at 7800 N. Tenaya Way. He lived in the same house at the orchards for more than 80 years and spent almost every day when he was healthy tinkering with machinery in a huge work shed he had built.

He was the brother of fellow octogenarian Bill Gilcrease, who has long operated the Gilcrease Bird Sanctuary adjacent to the orchards.

Las Vegas honored Ted Gilcrease for his community service by proclaiming June 29, 2001, as "Ted Gilcrease Day."

His orchards long sold goods at two-thirds the cost that area supermarkets charged. The Gilcrease farm produces, among other products, apples, peaches, plums, corn, peppers, figs, squash, tomatoes, cantaloupe, apricots, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon and various nuts.

Born in Reno on June 29, 1916, Ted Gilcrease began his farming career at age 4 after his parents moved the family to Las Vegas to start a farm that initially produced alfalfa to feed cattle on trains en route from Salt Lake City ranches to Los Angeles slaughter houses. Young Ted's job at that time was to feed the farm's 1,600 chickens.

When Ted Gilcrease was a teenager, his father, Leonard, who in California had been an engineer for General Electric, left the family, leaving Ted's mother, Elda Gilcrease, to raise her sons.

In 1932 the family got indoor running water from a gravity-fed tank, but the first indoor toilet was not installed until the 1940s. Electricity was brought to the property in 1950, though the family had long used propane-generated lamps and energy from a small power plant on the property.

Ted said he often put in 12-hour work days to keep the farm going. He said he never had time for a wife, joking: "What woman wants a man who works so many hours for so little money?" Bill also did not marry.

Recently, the Gilcrease brothers donated land near their properties to the Clark County School District for a high school they requested be named for the mother who died in 1968 at age 78.