That's Laura (Lollie) Rand, granddaughter of E.L. Smith alongside Laurence Herschner, son of Reverend and Mrs. J.L. Herschner in the Rand's yard next to the Riverside Congregational Church on State Street. Peaches were a common crop in Hood River in the early days. I don't know if it was drier here then, but peaches aren't the ideal fruit for the current Hood River climate.
Category: [Downtown Hood River]
Tags: Herschner peach Rand State_Street wagon
Ha! Assume that's a fence behind them. But at first glance, to me, it looks like a crane and a 60's modern building going up behind them. I guess because I created a couple of Modernism+ walking tours in Portland for the AHC, I'm seeing things. Cute kids!
Ellen on 21st July 2017 @ 9:17am
Here's some interesting stats on peaches from the the First Orchard Survey, 1908 courtesy of David Burkahrt's book "It All Began with..." 394,425 apple trees and 7,180 peach trees or 5,477 acres of apples and 100 acres of peaches. See page 56 for more info.
Ellen on 21st July 2017 @ 9:24am
While growing up my Dad had 1/2 acre of peaches that we sold at a little fruit stand on Tucker Road.
Jeff Bryant on 21st July 2017 @ 11:04am
Family lore has it that A.W. Peters started with dairy cows, but they all got sick and had to be destroyed. He switched to peaches and planted quite a few acres. He also got pigs to raise. The pigs got out and ate all the bark off the young peach trees. He wound up with apples.
Jill Stanford on 21st July 2017 @ 3:10pm
Jill, that is funny. Al was such a mild mannered wonderful man it just makes me laugh to think of all that.
Norma on 21st July 2017 @ 4:49pm
A friend from Amherst, MA told me he loved Hood River for the windsurfing and the most amazing peaches. I was puzzled. Pears and apples certainly but peaches? He said they were so famous that Seinfeld even did an episode on them - the famous Mackinaw peaches that are only available for 2 weeks out of the year. Still puzzled, I did a quick Google search and found out the Mackinaw peaches were an invention of the show's writers.
Kevin on 21st July 2017 @ 5:15pm
Great stories. I planted a peach tree here and got great peaches for a few years, but each year it became harder and harder to fight the leaf curl and I finally gave up. There are plenty of great peaches available from orchards just east of here-- I bet Kevin's friend liked to sail at "Peach Beach" and buy peaches at the Maryhill fruit stand.
Arthur on 21st July 2017 @ 5:42pm
Great peaches up on the hills behind Mosier in the late 50's.
Buzz on 21st July 2017 @ 7:45pm
My Dad's 1/2 acre of Red Haven peaches was down behind Bryant Pipe. We sold out every day we had the fruit stand open. Sometimes our stand was upside down fruit bins. We also used an old army truck or trailer for the stand.
Jeffrey Bryant on 22nd July 2017 @ 9:02am
Best peaches and apricots grown in Maryhill...After my great-great grandmother was widowed in the little community of Columbus in 1883. The was the name then. She had to come up with ideas to support her and her children. One summer she canned 1,000 jars of peaches. They were ferried across to the Oregon side and put on the railroad. From there they were sent to the gold fields of Idaho. She made $1.00 a jar, which was great money in that era. Lots of hard work though.
Charlott on 23rd July 2017 @ 9:05am
Hard work & money!
Judy on 24th July 2017 @ 5:48pm
Good grief!! I can't imagine peeling peaches and canning 1,000 jars. Probably on a wood cook stove!
I grew up in the Camas/Washougal area and it was pretty common for families to make a yearly summer trip to White Salmon to buy several boxes of peaches to take home and can.
Some of the best apricots are from the old trees on the old abandoned homesteads east of Goldendale.
L.E. on 24th July 2017 @ 8:59pm
Dad, Dan Hanners, had a wonderful white peach tree and three nectarine tree's in his pear orchard that I picked and canned for years. It was some of the best fruit I ever tasted. I believe you can still get peaches from Jack & Donna Fortner's peach orchard in O'Dell. At least you could three years ago.
Lesa L. hanners on 29th July 2017 @ 12:33pm