From a single acre planted in 1932 on a dryland farm outside Athena, Oregon, the green pea industry in the Blue Mountain District grew through the throes of the Great Depression to eventually encompass over 100,000 acres.

At its peak in the early 1960s, 20% of the nation’s canned green peas and over 25% of its frozen products came from the tri-state area of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Innovations such as vine-compressing truck beds, harvesting equipment, and plant automation machinery spawned millions of dollars in economic activity. The over two hundred growers and the numerous processing plants employed thousands of seasonal laborers and hundreds of year-round employees. The processing plants—eighteen at the height of production—changed the communities in which they resided. A culture grew up around the harvest with a Pea Queen crowned in an annual Pea Festival held in mid/late May before harvest started. Numerous ancillary industries sprung up or expanded to handle the late spring/early summer crop.

Few signs of the vitality of the industry are still visible in the District; plants have been razed or re-purposed, farms have been converted to other crops or placed in conservation reserve programs, even the growers—some generations in the business—are disappearing. This month’s presenter, Al Cummins, author of The Green Pea Era has undertaken to preserve memories and facts of the era for current and future generations.