For those of you who have been following along, you know that I am in the middle of the ARISE USA Resurrection Tour for faith, family and freedom. It is scheduled for 114 days with 85 stops in 48 states and we are about one-quarter of the way through the journey.
What has become glaringly apparent to me is that the past 21 years of my life spent traveling the country were simply preparing me for this tour. I am picking the location of each stop and for that I call on my network of friends to serve as hosts and site selection has become very significant.
When Robert David Steele had the original vision for this tour, he looked at a map and drew lines around the country through all the major cities in each state. I decided not to go into those cities but rather to reach out to friends on the exterior of each city. The vision became very clear for me on June 13 in Norco, California. I have been to HorseTown, USA, in the past, a mere 40 miles from Los Angeles, and it only made sense for me to pick this location.
First off, my sincere thanks to Tim and Tammie Schamber who own “The Farm” in Norco. Norco is a town with 160 miles of horse paths in place of sidewalks. The town is a cross between modern-day Anytown, USA, and a big dash of old Dodge City yesteryear.
As the emcee of the event, I research the history of each region that we come into. With every single stop on the tour I have found something very significant as to why we are traveling and rallying the troops but in Norco we really hit the jackpot.
While Rex Clark was not actually the founder of Norco, he is the man who developed it into a regional powerhouse. Directly on the City of Norco website you read:
“Rex Clark’s vision of a utopian settlement of independent farmers reaping the rewards of their hard work on small farms and ranches. Clark saw Norco as a refuge for city dwellers—no boss, no commute, no postage stamp-sized apartment—just fresh air and the satisfaction of making your own way in the world.
“Clark was a businessman but also a dreamer and passionate, creative individual. He believed in the goodness of mankind and that independence fosters creative energies and economic prosperity. He promoted his development to the ‘average Joe’ looking for a chance to make a living from the sweat of his brow. Clark named his new town ‘Norco’—a contraction of the first two parts of his company’s name, the North Corona Land Company.
“Clark’s town consisted of five Norco Farms subdivisions surrounding a village center containing a general store, gasoline station and the Norco Garage. North of the Norco Store, Clark created a manufacturing district with a warehouse, plumbing shop, pipe-making facility, concrete block manufacturing operation, machine shop, lumber yard and construction department. There, a Norco resident could arrange to have a home built, buy a prefabricated chicken coop, purchase irrigation pipes, buy a tractor or have one serviced. The Norco Store offered groceries, clothing, hardware, dry goods, auto parts and other essentials. Early Norconians dined at the Norco Grill, gathered at a meeting hall and checked out books at a library staffed by volunteers from the Women’s Progressive Club.”
Right there we have found the missing component in today’s world. Faith in mankind, creating an opportunity for the incentive to build something with sweat equity, passion and tears. The vision of the community itself is providing for its own and not relying on the mega-corporations in larger centralized business points. Even some of the folks of Norco talk about the folksiness of the chicken coops you see in town without a core understanding of the immediate need for the daily essentials that they provide. You can see how everything Rex Clark envisioned for Norco in the early 1900s has become the path forward for building strong local communities and ultimately a strong nation over 100 years later.
My life lesson from HorseTown, USA, is that building communities like we did in the days of dusty trails would greatly strengthen our families, communities, and our nation. Supporting local efforts to create and build opportunities for all Americans can only be a good thing for us all. Building on the freedoms and goals of our nation’s earliest leaders will help take our nation in a better direction.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].