This is the story of Sutter County's most famous fruit farmer. At least the most famous one many here have never heard of.
Harry Bartholomew Hooper does not have a peach or a seedless grape named after him, and he was not, like the County's namesake, the first large scale farmer in Northern California. In fact, as a farmer in Tierra Buena in the second and third decades of the 20th century, he had a foreman run things while he spent a lot of his time hunting and fishing in the fields and rivers, pursuing his off-season passions. His "on-season" passion? He was the captain, right fielder, and leadoff hitter for the 1912, 1915, 1916, and 1918 World Series champion Boston Red Sox.
Considered by many, including team mate Babe Ruth, to be the best outfielder of the "dead ball" era, Harry Hooper, a onetime Sutter County landowner, farmer, and resident, is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. He is credited with, among other things, pioneering and perfecting the sliding catch, and convincing the Red Sox to play Babe Ruth in the outfield on days the slugger was not pitching. 
Born on August 24, 1877 in Santa Clara Valley, Harry Hooper played major league baseball from 1909 through 1925, spending the bulk of his career with the Boston Red Sox, and the remainder with the Chicago White Sox. He retired holding many batting and fielding records for an outfielder, and still holds the record for completing the most double plays by an outfielder, and is tied for the all-time record in outfield assists. He was the first Red Sox batter to ever step up to the plate in Fenway Park, now the major league's oldest ballpark.
He was one of the few college graduates playing baseball at the time. Having graduated from St. Mary's College with an engineering degree, his initial interest was in the field of engineering--he signed to play baseball with the Sacramento team of the old Pacific Coast League right out of college on the condition he could find a job with one of the railroad lines crossing at the state capitol. Sacramento team owner Billie Curtin arranged for Harry to get a job as a surveyor with Western Pacific Railroad for $75 a month, and paid Harry another $85 a month to play baseball. One of Harry's first jobs was to survey a new line north from Sacramento to Pleasant Grove in Sutter County.
Harry spent one year with Sacramento before being recruited to play for the Boston Red Sox. In the 1915 World Series victory against Pittsburgh, Hooper hit two home runs and was brilliant in the field. Each of the players on the championship team received a bonus of $3,780, with which Hooper, on the advice of his father, began investing in peach and raisin property in the Marysville-Yuba City area. He expanded his holdings in Yuba City to include pomegranates and artichokes following the 1917 season.
That's the same year he registered for the draft for what would become known as World War I, using his Tierra Buena address. At the same time, Hooper also maintained a home in Capitola, where his parents lived. After his retirement from Major League baseball in 1925, Hooper split his time between the two communities, playing minor league  ball for a team in the Bay Area and also, occasionally,  for the Marysville Giants. He ended his baseball career with the Marysville Giants in 1929.
Hooper had tried many business ventures--insurance agent, juice processing, oil drilling--but his focus on baseball, hunting, and fishing were no help in those pursuits. During the Great Depression, he lost his farming property in the Yuba City and Marysville area. He took a job as postmaster of Capitola, which he held for several decades. He was named to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.