In 1987, the Arkansas Legislature had what might be described as a fruitful session. Some of its members wanted to designate an official state fruit along with a state vegetable. Thanks to a powerful legislator from Warren, they ended up being the same: the south Arkansas vine-ripe pink tomato.
“Act 255, introduced as House Bill 1480, asserted the aesthetic and culinary excellence of the Arkansas-grown tomato and determined that, because it was technically a fruit but generally consumed as a vegetable, it should serve as both in the state’s collection of official symbols,” writes David Ware, the author of “It’s Official! The Real Stories Behind Arkansas’s State Symbols.” “The act’s wording describes a type rather than specifying a species because there exists no registered breed styled ‘south Arkansas vine-ripe pink tomato.’ “The measure was introduced by state Rep. John Lipton, whose constituency included Bradley County, long associated with tomato production. The state symbol status recognizes the role of the tomato in Arkansas agriculture and memorializes a cropping technique that has lost ground in the market. In the second half of the 19th century, Americans embraced the tomato as a healthy staple. Many varieties were grown, mainly for local or regional markets. Excess production was canned.” By the 1920s, south Arkansas farmers favored tomatoes that ripened to a pink hue and could be picked and shipped at first ripening.
“These were possibly descended from such pink heirloom strains as the Brandywine and the so-called Cherokee Purple, both identified before 1890,” Ware writes. “In 1959, Arkansas’ commercial tomato production exceeded 290,000 tons, with a market value of more than $2.5 million. In 1956, citizens at Warren organized a modest festival to honor the crop, which by then was known as the Bradley Pink.
“In 1961, University of Arkansas agronomist Joe McFerran released a variety with the registered name of Bradley Pink, a pink-fruited plant resistant to wilt and suitable for staking or caging. A decade later, the university released another pink variety, the Traveler, sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Arkansas Traveler.” Warren was growing rapidly by the 1920s. The city went from a population of just 492 people in the 1890 census to 2,523 in 1930 as large lumber mills attracted laborers. In 1920, Warren became one of the nation’s smallest towns with a YMCA.
Each year, the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame inducts a food-themed event. It was inevitable that the iconic Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival would be inducted at some point, and it was the choice for 2021.
Other finalists this year were the Tontitown Grape Festival, the World Championship Duck Gumbo Cookoff at Stuttgart, the Magnolia Blossom Festival & World Championship Steak Cookoff at Magnolia, the Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church’s spaghetti dinner at Lake Village, and the Arkansas Cornbread Festival at Little Rock.
The Warren Chamber of Commerce helped organize the first tomato festival.
Leah Forrest Sexton writes for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas: “The one-day event included musicians, a carnival and exhibits. A parade and beauty pageant were added the second year. Another event began after Jean Frisby, who was the Cooperative Extension Service home economist for Bradley County, gathered with other people in the Southern Hotel on the town square.
“Young women who competed for Tomato Queen that year were also crowded into the un-air-conditioned hotel. This inspired Frisby to establish a more proper event the next year, the All-Tomato Luncheon, held in Warren’s YMCA building. About 25 guests attended the first luncheon. The next year, the extension homemakers planned for the same number, but more than 100 people arrived. The luncheon served fresh tomato juice to waiting guests in the lobby.”
In the 1830s, Albert Pike made the tomato the centerpiece of his campaign to expand food choices in Arkansas. Tomatoes, though, weren’t grown on a large scale until the advent of canning plants.
“Yocum in Carroll County had a plant in the 1880s,” Sexton writes. “In subsequent decades, canneries and tomato sheds were built across the state. Tomatoes grown in the Ozarks were packaged in a variety of ways. During the Great Depression, home demonstration clubs taught tomato canning. However, tomato blight hit northwest Arkansas in the 1940s, forcing farmers there to look elsewhere for their livelihood.” Since then, the state’s tomato industry has been centered in south Arkansas. As cotton became less profitable, tomatoes began being sold in Bradley County in the early 1920s. Early tomato producers included the Jim Johnson family of Jersey, the Rufus Woodward family of Ingalls, and the Nathan Barber family of Warren.
“With assistance from county agent C.S. Johnson, Woodward experimented with vegetable truck crops for marketing,” Sexton writes. “Woodward discovered that he was able to grow tomatoes from seeds in a hot bed that were transferred and remained covered for protection from possible frost until they were placed in fields. During the next two decades, more farmers experimented with pink tomatoes.” Farmers entered into contracts with grocery stores in Little Rock and Pine Bluff. In 1949, a group of farmers established the Hermitage Tomato Market, which was modeled after tobacco auctions. Buyers came from across the region to bid on boxes of vine-ripe tomatoes.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson’s column appears
regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog
at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com .