calsfoundation@cals.org
December 28, 2007
By the late 1800s, with the growth of railroads, northwest Arkansas became the dominant apple-producing region in the state. By the turn of the twentieth century, the largest employers in the Benton and Washington county area were the apple evaporators. The operation shown here located in Lowell (Benton County) was just one of the approximately 250 evaporators that processed the area’s low-grade fruit. With the introduction of government regulation, the industry became almost extinct by the late 1920s.