The Fruit Market Meltdown
Kennewick's fruit growers faced a financial disaster as over-ripe shipments caused market prices to collapse in the Midwest.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An extract from the Daily Produce News, Sept. 22, 1914, reads: 'The North Pacific Distributors received a pretty hard jolt on their eastern peach deal. There were 73 unsold carloads of fruit rolling toward the Minneapolis market, consisting of one-half peaches. During the first two weeks in September, the Distributors supplied the auction houses with peaches daily, which sold at 35 and 40 cents per box. As the auction houses charge 4 percent commission and the cost for freight and icing is 32 cents per box, some growers may be required to dig deep in their jeans. The bulk of the peaches were over-ripe, and heavy shipments from Colorado and Utah caused the market to go to pieces.' Chas. H. Collins, General Sales Manager for the Fruit Exchange, adds: 'Is that the end of the fruit business in the Kennewick Valley if such methods are used? Growers, think it over. The Fruit Exchange made good in spite of the efforts of certain Kennewick interests to break us. We are still in the ring to bid for the whole tonnage of the Columbia River Valley Early Fruit Belt for 1915.'
“The bulk of the peaches were over-ripe and the heavy shipments from Colorado and Utah caused the market to go to pieces.”
Agricultural volatility and the struggle between independent cooperatives and corporate distributors remain defining tensions in the Tri-Cities economy today. The 1914 'peach deal' highlights how the region's early boom relied heavily on unpredictable long-distance supply chains.
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