Historic Hood River
AGA Facilities
9-21-2017
Notes
It’s a little hard to place this photo of AGA (Apple Growers Association) facilities because they are on a street which no longer exists. We’re looking down 6th Street north from Columbia, right through the Full Sail tasting room. The conveyor carries culled fruit to the vinegar plant down by the tracks. You can see the tanks for vinegar storage.
charlott
On down a ways was where AGA members went to get their spray. I don’t recall if it may have been at the end of this building complex or further on down. Just remember going there numerous times to pick up things like DDT, Lime and Sulpher, Arsenic and Lead. You know the good old spray that actually killed the bugs with one spray…..
L.E.
Where’s the dog?
Thanks for the "today" photo. Interesting that there are still tanks involved.
Kenn
Interesting that HR had a plant to make vinegar from fermented apples. I remember tons of them being dumped east of town on Inspiration Point and clouds of bees as a result ~.
Jeff Bryant
I remember picking up chunks of sulphur from by the railroad tracks. I never knew where it came from. It was a nice ingredient to find.
Philip
I’m sure the Arsenic and Lead used in the early years caused my grandfather to die "young" at the age of 97. On the other hand, the pre-cautionary measures taken today could help keep the farmers healthy. The valley continues to be one of the best places to raise the best pears and apples in the country and would be great to keep it so.
Norma Simpson
Kenn, I remember the smell when we parked to get to Koberg’s Beach.
charlott
Jeff: Yes, my grandpa sprayed with DDT and all those other sprays and lived to be shy just a few months of 100. Then Uncle Walter lived well into his 90’s after he sprayed all those years……..
nels
I wonder why vinegar making is not still a viable agricultural product. Price goes up as the added ingredients vary.
J.E. Sheppard
Arsenic and Lead (AKA lead arsenate) were "cover sprays". They weren’t all that poison. You had to keep the apples continuously "covered" so that a hatching coddling moth egg turned larva would have to eat through it. If the worm developed free of the spray and got into the apple, he went on to lunch and thrived, spray or no spray. Arsenic and Lead are not health food. It’s sort of amazing that so many ingested so much of that stuff and still lived a long time with their mental faculties intact.