Turlock, California: Melons, Assyrian Heritage, and a Chick-fil-A the Whole County Waited For

Pull off Highway 99 in the middle of the Central Valley and you'll find Turlock, California, population 73,631 at the 2020 census. That makes it the second-largest city in Stanislaus County, right behind Modesto and just ahead of whatever your GPS was trying to tell you about Ceres.

RoastMyTown.com recently took a flamethrower to this place. We came with a notebook and a sense of fairness, so this is a travel guide that happens to have jokes in it. Some of the roast was funny. Some of it needed a fact-check, and we did the fact-checking.

The Watermelon Capital of the World (Yes, Really)

Turlock's agricultural past is real and a little ridiculous. The first Turlock Melon Carnival was held in 1911.

That carnival was serious business. The celebration included activities like melon rolling contests and a crowning of a Melon Queen. The roast called this a town "better at growing melons than having a personality." That's rude, but a town that invented competitive melon rolling clearly has a personality. It's just a very specific one.

The fair is still the biggest thing going. It opens every year in mid-July and is the largest event in Stanislaus County. It runs for 10 days at the fairgrounds.

One correction to the roast: the town isn't a melon graveyard. It's a melon dynasty that peaked early and has been coasting on the title ever since, like a retired quarterback at a sports bar.

Little Urmia: The Assyrian Story the Roast Undersold

The roast cards made a joke about Assyrians "fleeing one desert for another." We'll pass on that one, because the real story is better than the joke.

The Assyrian settlers of the San Joaquin Valley came mainly from northwestern Iran (Urmia region) as early as 1910, but the migration increased due to the genocide committed against them before, during and after World War I. In 1910, an Assyrian colony was established in Turlock after a first attempt to settle in nearby Delhi had failed. The reason is a classic real estate scam: the agent did not tell the Assyrians that they had no access to water for irrigation in that part of the valley. Turlock, with its irrigation, was the fix. The climate also reminded them of home.

That heritage is still celebrated. The Central Valley Assyrian Festival returns to the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds, with free admission, free parking, and performances by the Hakkari, Larsa, and Nohadra Dance Groups. That's a lot more than a "civic club that rents out for weddings," and the food alone is worth the drive from Modesto.

Fairgrounds, Fine Print, and the Parts That Aren't Funny

The roast mentioned the Japanese Americans connected to Turlock, and the joke didn't land. The actual history deserves a straight telling. The fairgrounds were turned over to the Wartime Civilian Control Administration, and the Turlock Assembly Center was one of fifteen temporary camps where Japanese Americans were held before permanent camps were finished. It opened on April 30, 1942, and thousands of Japanese Americans passed through before it closed on August 12.

It's an uncomfortable chapter, and a good travel blog should say so. The fairgrounds that host funnel cakes today were once a place of confinement for thousands of people, most of them US citizens.

Kaepernick, Chicken, and Chick-fil-A: Modern Turlock

On to the lighter stuff. California State University, Stanislaus opened to students in 1960, helping to spur growth in the city. The Warriors have produced at least one household name, and the roast had fun with Kaepernick. We'll just note that the town's biggest export being a person who stood (or knelt) for something is a better résumé line than most college towns can claim.

Then there's Foster Farms, the poultry giant the roast leaned on. We can't verify the "restaurants that became Starbucks" bit, so take it as roast material. What we can say is that the local food scene has real options. Travel listings point visitors to Dust Bowl Brewing Co. and the Carnegie Arts Center, so you're not stuck with chicken-scented air and regret.

And in August, Turlock hit a milestone. The city joined Chick-fil-A and community members to celebrate the grand opening of a Chick-fil-A at the Turlock Marketplace shopping center. People turned out in droves for a chicken sandwich. For a town the roast accused of having no personality, that's a very enthusiastic one.

Other news: the City Council unanimously awarded the construction contract for the Geer Road Rehabilitation Project after nearly three years of planning. Three years for a road. Welcome to municipal government. And a future Altamont Corridor Express station is planned, so Turlock may soon be commutable to the Bay Area by train, if you enjoy long rides and dreams.

The Verdict

Is Turlock the Paris of the San Joaquin Valley? No. But it's a real place with real history: a melon-fueled carnival, a pioneering Assyrian community, a university with a famous alum, and a county fair that fills the fairgrounds every July. The roast was funny, though it picked on the wrong things. The real punchline is that a town this unassuming has this much story.

Think we were too nice? See the full roast on RoastMyTown.com.