LIVING HISTORY
It takes two years for a pineapple plant to bear fruit. While growing pineapple is no longer part of the agricultural industry on the Treasure Coast, residents
along Indian River Drive still grow pineapple for personal consumption.
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PHOTO BY CAMILLE S. YATES
in pineapple production.
Despite these threats, the pineapple
industry remained dominant
in the Indian Riverland, according
to this 1910 account by Winthrop
Packard in his book “Florida Trails”:
This is a country of pineapple plantations.
They cover the ridge next to
the Indian River, clothing it in prickly
green lances from the river banks to
the savanna behind it, for miles on
miles, running north and south. In
places these are under sheds, acres in
extent. In others the wide lagoon of
water on the west protected them and
they are but little harmed. In others
the full blight of the cold has worked
in them and their green lances have
turned a sickly, straw yellow. On such
fields the crops for this year is ruined,
and many acres of newly set young
plants are killed to the root. Thus does
winter set his mark occasionally even
on this semi-tropic land.”
INDUSTRY’S DEMISE
The Hallstrom pineapple crop,
ST. LUCIE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM
“Pines” were sorted for shipment at the packinghouse. Ripe ones were marketed locally while greener ones
were shipped to markets north such as New York.
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