The Puyallup Hop Market Standoff
Growers and buyers are deadlocked over hop prices, with many farmers facing the threat of foreclosure if they cannot secure better rates.
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.
PUYALLUP, Oct. 18.—C. W. Stewart was offered 20 cents for his hops on October 3 but did not sell. The ruling price in Puyallup at present remains at 20 cents. Ezra Meeker, A. C. Campbell, and George L. Rose are all offering this price for choice hops. Some growers fear they will come to grief as their mortgages come due before a good price is offered, forcing them to sell at a loss. However, it is hoped that banks will offer relief by loaning growers the funds to hold their crops until the market rises. Ezra Meeker recently visited Kent and confirmed that picking was concluding at the Riverside yard and the quality was the finest ever harvested in Washington.
“It is feared by some that the growers who were obliged to mortgage their crops... will come to grief by the mortgage coming due before a good price is offered.”
The late 19th-century hop industry was the economic backbone of the Puyallup Valley, but its reliance on speculative market prices and farm debt created a precarious cycle of boom and bust. Similar tensions between global market pricing and local agricultural sustainability persist in Washington today.
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