Shipping Fruit to Market by the Northern Pacific Railway System

During the early years of fruit production, Kittitas Valley fruit was noted for its superior keeping quality, giving it a comparative market advantage in an era characterized by "iced" carloads of fruit and poor refrigeration technology. As many as 200 carloads of fruit were shipped out of Thrall, a railroad siding located about five miles south of Ellensburg, each year prior to 1930. Optimism for the future of the Kittitas Valley prevailed a century ago. The following excerpt is from The Coast, a local promotion piece published in May 1908, touting the imminent prosperity promised with the coming of the railroads, specifically the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul.

The building of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul Railway means much for the County of Kittitas and the cities within its confines. It opens up avenues for the development and settlement of wide areas now used for grazing lands and offers inducements for the cutting up of large hay ranches and the beginning of large things in the way of fruit raising and produce raising. New towns are certain to spring up within a year or so and where now the coyote and the sage brush flourish soon the roar of the limited speeding on its way between Chicago and Seattle will be heard and the screech of the engine's whistle will awaken the spirits of centuries which have been sleeping and will come to new life and activities.

A future of large promise is assured for the people of this country and, with the markets for Puget Sound brought nearer to the producer and cheaper transportation, as well, placed within their grasp, the people of the Kittitas Valley and Kittitas County will flourish and prosper and this region of fair and bright possibilities will grow and increase in wealth and importance as its people grasp the opportunities within their reach."

Sometime around the 1930's, the Northern Pacific Railway issued a pamphlet titled Apple Talk, used to promote consumption of Northwest apples. It was a technical guide to the "dietetic value"and benefits of "The Apple as Food." It included advice on apple storage, usage and the "Seasonableness of Northwestern Grown Apples." Apple Talk offered sixty recipes for year-round use of apples originally printed in "the Housekeepers' Apple Book," published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston. It also offered such sage wisdom as: "School children should eat more APPLES and less candy and sugar."

Transportation Maps Kittitas County Transportation Map Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railway Map Northern Pacific Railway Map

Back in the day there were Northern Pacific Rail Stops in the Apple Districts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana which included freight shipping in and out of: the Willamette Valley in Oregon; Washington's own Kittitas Valley, Goldendale, White Salmon and Vancouver, the Yakima Valley, Walla Walla, Spokane Country; also Lewiston-Clarkston and eastward to the Flathead Region, Bitter Root Valley and Clark's Fork Valley of Montana.

Packing houses were built along the railroad at Thrall and shipments were iced in rail cars and sent to big city markets. Before refrigerators were common, Kittitas Valley apples and pears were desirable for their superior keeping qualities and flavor.

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