As a small boy growing up in rural Montgomery County, I often attended local memorial events known as "decoration days" when graves were adorned with flowers and it often involved a church service. But I went to seek out the strawberry shortcakes found in abundance at the "dinner on the grounds" following the services.
Fresh Arkansas strawberries, especially when served with homemade shortcake and topped with real whipped cream, is perhaps the best dessert in the world. And Arkansans have a long and interesting history of growing and marketing these tasty berries.
According to landscape historian C. Allan Brown, strawberries were first documented in Little Rock in 1854. Mrs. Clara Dickson of Ouachita County frequently wrote about growing strawberries in letters to her family back in Alabama, the first being on April 24, 1857, when she bemoaned a late frost "which killed everything, wheat included." But it was her young daughter Mollie who "was more sorry about the strawberries than anything else . . ."
While strawberries seem to have been grown in family gardens for generations, the arrival of railroads after the Civil War made it possible to grow strawberries commercially.
Ray Muncy, in his history of the White County seat of Searcy, identified George P. Murrell of the small village of Austin in Lonoke County as marketing 30 cases of strawberries in St. Louis in 1873. The center of production quickly moved north, however, with the first commercial strawberries being grown in White County in 1874.
Area farmers quickly adopted strawberry production, and before long White County was home to dozens of strawberry farms. A whole infrastructure developed to support the new berry industry.
Jacob C. Bauer of Judsonia began a large strawberry nursery in Arkansas in 1878. A.W. Hoofman of Searcy also established a strawberry nursery, where farmers could choose from a host of strawberry varieties with names such as Klondyke, Excelsior, and Lady Thompson. Muncy wrote that Hoofman's nursery employed 15 families "even in the depths of the Great Depression . . ."
J.M. Cathcart, a Union Army veteran from Indiana, recognized that strawberry farmers needed containers to ship their fruit, and about 1885 Cathcart and his brother opened the Enterprise box factory. Cathcart later invented the Cathcart Ventilated Berry Crate. In 1910, the factory produced 40,000 strawberry crates and boxes. By 1941 production grew to 850,000 items.
Strawberry farmers organized cooperatives to provide warehouses, marketing, and sometimes canneries, with the Judsonia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association being organized in 1898. The cooperative warehouses were usually situated for easy railroad access.
Successfully growing strawberries has always been a challenge in warm and humid Arkansas where fungal diseases flourish. Then there's the unpredictable weather. But, another challenge has always been the intensive labor needed to grow and harvest the soft-skinned berries.
Whole families, including small children, joined the frantic effort every spring to harvest the berries at just the right time. Payment was never very much--a few cents per quart--but it provided much needed supplemental income for local families. Local schools assisted by scheduling breaks during "berry pickin'."
In 1929 strawberry growers in White County began issuing their own monetary unit--a coupon known as a "quart." Pickers were paid with coupons having a face value of three cents each, which was the amount paid for each quart picked that year. The quarts could be redeemed for goods and services at any local business: three quarts for a hamburger, two quarts for a cup of coffee, or a month's subscription to the Arkansas Gazette newspaper for 30 quarts.
For many years the epicenter of strawberry production in Arkansas was in an area stretching northeasterly from modern Jacksonville to Newport. Judsonia, one of the major centers of strawberry production in the area, shipped 345 rail cars of berries in 1916 alone.
While the White County area produced more strawberries than any other county, strawberry farms could be found all around the state. The Alma area in Crawford County was also a major center of strawberry production, as were areas in Searcy County. In 1948 the Flint Rock Strawberry Growers Association in Searcy County reported sales of 19,500 crates, with most going to Kansas City. Growers in Washington and Benton counties also shipped strawberries to Kansas City, with Harvey Jones' new trucking company providing the transportation.
A number of factors contributed to the decline of the strawberry industry in Arkansas. A shortage of labor played a role, though the Bracero program temporarily allowed Mexican laborers to work on some larger Arkansas strawberry farms, including the highly diversified Lee Wilson & Co. of Mississippi County.
But the main threat to strawberry farming in Arkansas was the opening up of large-scale production in Florida, and especially California, after World War II. Perhaps we will see a revival of strawberry farming in Arkansas given the drought situation out west. Also, a growing number of consumers distrust modern strawberries due to the numerous chemicals employed in their cultivation--perhaps opening up a niche for organic growers.
And Arkansas strawberries simply taste better.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in rural Hot Spring County. Email: Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 05/03/2015