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Mount Hope Fruit Farm

Shipping Apples from the Mount Hope Fruit Farm – Original Photo Post Card from the Nathan Kramer Collection – Catalog No. SEN-0022

The Mount Hope Fruit Farm was located gentle slopping hill south of present day Wilber Street between 16th Street and US highway 75. The Martin Family Owned the farm in the early years. Much of the fruit was either ship out by rail or canned at the canning factory in town. On November 11, 1940, the “Armistice Day Freeze” swept across the Midwest, devastating the orchards at Mount Hope. The days before were unseasonably warm, the rapid drop in temperature, killed the trees. Snow and freeze rain cover a large portion of the Midwest. The orchard lost was so great that reinvesting in the seedlings and the 5-10 years for the trees to mature and bare fruit was far to great.

Related Links

• Wikipedia — Armistice Day Blizzard
• Minnesota Public Radio — Winds Of Hell