Growing and packing fruit for the world - Vernon, BC - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

Growing and packing fruit for the world

by Contributed - Vernon Morning Star
posted Jul 14, 2013 at 1:00 AM

This former fruit storage and packing house at 3203-28th St. has served the community for more than 100 years. It has gone through many incarnations, being built in 1913 to serve as a storage and shipping facility for the Vernon Fruit Union. The industrial frame vernacular building is now known in part as the Case Furniture Gallery which has the south two thirds, and as Briteland Holdings in the north one third. The building is one of the earlier examples of storage and packing house facilities as used in the Okanagan.

The building stored all manner of produce, from potatoes and onions to fruit and other vegetables. There was also an elevator and conveyor belt system to move the produce from floor to floor. With the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks running right by the rear of the building, it was easy to load the boxcars from the storage.

The property was originally part of the CPR stockyards in the early years until it was leased for the storage-packing house about 1920. First use was by the Vernon Storage Company, an affiliate of the Vernon Fruit Union. This was followed by the Mutual Fruit Company in the late ‘20s and by Browne-Lander in the ‘30s. It appears to have been purchased by Dolph Browne in 1942 when he operated the packing house and was utilized by him until 1960. About that time Archie Fleming Wholesale occupied the south end. Antique Imports followed in part of the building, and was further followed by Sandy’s New and Used Furniture. Briteland Farm Supplies moved into their end in 1985. Case Furniture Gallery and the Case family took over in 2009 in the part they are now occupying.

Commercial fruit growing was started in the Okanagan in the early 1890s with Lord and Lady Aberdeen on their Coldstream Estates. By 1893 Lord Aberdeen had 900 acres under cultivation and other farmers were soon buying the subdivided lands and were planting out orchards. Add to this the Land and Agricultural Company’s large acreage in the BX District.

Very quickly the sheer volume of fruit being produced required storage facilities to be created, and markets found for the produce. Fruit and produce, including hay, was shipped to mining towns in the Kootenays and the Prairies. In the 1890s peaches were fed to the hogs since there was no way to bring the fruit to the market. In the ‘20s the fruit was so plentiful that the markets were flooded. Co-operative marketing came onto the scene and this too experienced many problems and failures.

Gradually the storage facilities were improved and strict quality grading gave the Okanagan fruit access to markets in the U.K., the States and Canada. Fruit growing used to be the Okanagan’s main economic driver.

One of the cultural footnotes that came out of shipping fruit in wooden, 40-pound boxes, was the colourful labels used to identify the product. Between 1910 and 1965, the fruit was shipped with beautifully designed paper labels affixed to a box end; they were a distinctive and colourful depiction of life in the Okanagan. Some brands used were Silver Star by A. T. Howe, Ogopogo Brand by B.C. Fruit Shippers, and the OK Brand used by the Vernon Fruit Union and the Associated Growers of B.C. The Valley’s main overseas market was the United Kingdom, and terms denoting the Empire were British Columbia Apples, Canadian Apples, and the use of a star symbol with EMPIRE imprinted thereon. Who would have thought that shipping apples to parts unknown would have the effect of bringing new settlers looking for a more interesting lifestyle to the Okanagan.
Read more at the Vernon Morning Star