Who set off the Clark County prune boom? Some give credit to Samuel W. Brown. President Abraham Lincoln sent him from Galesburg, Ill., to Vancouver in 1861 as the receiver of public monies. Among other things, Brown started the largest nursery north of San Francisco. He planted his first prune tree at 19th and D streets on a date unrecorded.
Arthur Hidden of the brick-making family planted a prune orchard near 26th and Main streets in 1876. Another contender is a Vermont native, L.B. Clough, who grew prunes along north Main Street in 1879.
No matter the source, Clark County was palpably prunish for about 50 years. Prunes were an integral part of the community and its efforts.
Prune orchards sprung up all over the county – north, east and west of Vancouver. Once, locals called the Fruit Valley area “New Dakota” because so many residents from the Dakotas settled there. It was so thick with prune orchards, locals renamed it. Prune enthusiasts replanted Strawberry Hill east of Vancouver in prune trees and renamed it Prune Hill.
Clough built one of the first prune dryers and pioneered prune packing and shipping. In 1901, he managed a prune packing business near the ferry landing, Kelley-Clark Company. An early sort of co-op, the business improved packing and marketing for growers and employed mostly women.
Prunes hailed so prominently that when Vancouver Barracks Company G was recruited for the Spanish-American War, its nickname was the “Prune Picked Platoon.” After a 10-minute speech at the Vancouver railroad station in 1911, President William Howard Taft went away with – guess what – two boxes of prunes. By World War I, Clark County declared itself the prune capital of the world.
In the early 1920s, the Washington and Oregon Growers associations jointly advertised Mistland prunes as the “taste you prefer in pies,” sauces and desserts. A recipe alongside the ad emphasized the point.
At its pruney peak, the county shipped 15 to 17 tons of prunes worldwide annually. But in February 1916, after a silver thaw, the prune business declined and never quite recovered.
Martin Middlewood is editor of the Clark County Historical Society Annual. Reach him at ClarkCoHist@gmail.com.
