Prune Hill
Views
10/17/2009
93 walkers was not a great turnout, but we were severely hampered by a dire weather prediction which really didn’t pan out. There were some excellent Fall colors and a few Halloween themed decorations and we received compliments on the route.
pictures: Carol Jensen
This walk was held once before in 2001 in the Spring. For what was seen then, see http://www.allweatherwalkers.org/phv.htm
The following brief history of prunes on Prune Hill was developed thanks to material originally found by Grant and Iona Flagan for the 2001 walk (and thanks to Jill McLean for preserving it), the History of Clark County published by the Columbian, and a few web sites I researched:
Come up on the
Hill
and get a little good fresh air. Cast
your eye, if you will, on the apple or the pear. Even
the birds will welcome you with their merry whistled tunes, and before you
leave the Hill I’ll bet you are full of prunes.
In a good year,
more than 15 million pounds of dried prunes were shipped from
If the prunes
were extra sweet the dryer tracks
became so sticky that a
tractor had to be hooked up to winches to pull the prunes through the dryer, a
24 hour process. Dryers were fueled by wood,
which involved many workers to cut and supply the dryer. Later, dryers were
fueled by oil.
The Thomas Gilliheen family in front of their prune dryer in Fisher’s
Landing
Pickers could
earn $25.00 to $30.00
a season plus a bonus of 1/2 cent a box if they worked the entire season.
1876:
Arthur Hidden planted the first prune orchard in
The Knapp
homestead at
1887:
A. Cook and Son
received orders
for 10,000 prune
trees.
A dozen chimneys
vented the heat from the Blair prune dryer as workers posed in this 1890’s
photo. 
Kelley-Clarke
Company was one of two prune-packing plants constructed in Vancouver in 1901, following
agitation by growers for better packing and marketing conditions. The company
employed about 60 persons, mostly women, in 1901. This plant and Porter Bros.
plant packed 40 tons of prunes daily. Low 1901 prices, 4 cents a pound, curbed
the enthusiasm of the plant operators.
Porter Bros.
Packing House,
September 30, 1901
The prunes are received in sacks on the first floor,
weighed and
thrown into a bin.
They are carried by a steam run prune carrier to the third floor where they are
run through a grader and steam processor. On to the second
floor where women pack two layers of prunes in boxes. Men take the boxes and nail on covers and take
them back to the first floor where the boxes are
labeled and shipped
September 1905:
Prune Day at the
Fair. Each visitor is given a little
basket of choice prunes.
Dec. 17, 1910 There are about
5,000 acres of prunes in
October 11, 1911:
President William Howard
Taft spoke for ten minutes at the Vancouver Railroad station. He was given two
boxes of choice 
In 1916 the
humble prune was
“King” and
 |
 |
February 2, 1916
severe “silver thaw” severely
ruined many
prune trees and
the industry never fully recovered. 
1916: Prune pickers lived in tents, “Bachelor’s
all”, during the four to five weeks of harvest and drying.
In 1919, the Prunarians were organized. This group of
September 1926: Three day “Prune Festival”
in
Dancing
Parade
Crowning of the
Queen of
Prunaria
http://www.ccrh.org/comm/camas/etown4.htm
http://retro.columbian.com/history/prunarians.cfm
By 1929, these
causes
decreased prune sales:
1. Refrigeration in
transportation.
2.
3. Nature problems with growing and poor
farming methods here, blight and over plowing under trees.
Through the
1930’s & 1940’s prune orchards and dryers became almost extinct in
