Richland’s Golden Berry Season
Local growers ship the first crate of the season to a luxury hotel, marking a record-breaking early harvest.
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.
Richland has done it again. The honor of shipping the first crate of berries to ripen in the valley falls to the local growers. Sunday, April 25th, a full crate of beautiful, ripe Clark’s Seedling strawberries was shipped to Manager W. L. Wright, of the Davenport Hotel, Spokane, by F. J. O’Brien, manager of the Horn Rapids Irrigation company. Mr. O’Brien visited the different patches in the district Sunday afternoon with his car and a full crate was easily secured. The growers are already in receipt of a check from Manager Wright for eight dollars, and he is very much pleased to think that the shipment this year is five days ahead of the first shipment of any previous year. Picking will be in full force by the first of May, and already the town looks very lively, many pickers arriving every day to camp on the flat at the boat landing.
“The outlook is for a record crop and a good, steady price and demand.”
Richland’s identity as an agricultural power evolved from these early strawberry patches to become a massive center for industry and research. Today, the 'boat landing' area reflects the town's connection to the Columbia River, a recurring theme in its transition from orchard lands to the modern atomic city.
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