Page 23 - Flathead Beacon // 7.20.16

HOMES STARTING IN THE mid-$300,000’s
Hwy 93 between Whitefish & Kalispell,
Models Open
Daily 12-5pm
Westcraft Homes
Jodee Yachechek: 406.407.4834
Silverbrook Realty Larry Sartain: 406.871.5000
Falcon Real Estate Group Andrea Falcon: 406.249.7429
East on Silverbrook Dr
www.westcrafthomes.com
The HISTORY of FLATHEAD LAKE’S Iconic CHERRIES
IF NORTHWEST MONTANA seems like an unlikely source of sweet cherries, that’s because it is. The bright-red, non-citrus fruit isn’t native to Montana, yet the Flathead’s orchards produce some of the region’s nest cherries on an annual basis.
the arrival of red fruit springing up along the lakeshore.
By the 1920s, the juicy fruit was so popular that it expanded into a commercial crop after the Robbin brothers of Kalispell planted 700 trees near Yellow Bay. Montana’s
The abundance
of cherries around
Flathead Lake dates
back 123 years. As
the legend goes, Mar-
garet Estey planted
the rst sweet cherry
orchard on the lake’s
east shore in 1893. She
planted the trees with
the help of her sister-
in-law, who was mar-
ried to John C. Wood,
for whom Woods Bay
was named. Estey was
born in Nova Scotia,
Canada, in 1865 and
had moved around the
U.S. in her younger
years as her parents
chased the mining
boom, which led them to Butte in covered wagons that were drawn by mule teams owned by Wood.
After arriving on the east shore of Flathead Lake, Estey noticed that the microclimate around the massive lake could be conducive for large, sweet cherries and other unique crops, such as walnut and hazelnut trees. Long, warm days with plenty of sunshine and night temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees were common around Flathead Lake, as well as glacier-fed water and well-drained soil.
Estey planted the rst orchard as an experiment. Cherry trees begin bearing fruit after ve years, and, lo and behold, Estey noticed
rst traincar load of Lambert variety cher- ries left the original packing plant in Kalis- pell in 1932. In 1935, a cherry grower’s coop- erative, now called the Flathead Lake Cherry Growers, Inc., was organized.
Cherry orchards began popping up all along the lakeshore as Flathead Lake cher- ries became a known commodity sold across the U.S. A mature sweet cherry tree is capable of producing more than 100 pounds of fruit in a season. Trees bear ripe fruit
from late July through mid-Au- gust. The Flathead area has pro- duced as much as 7 million pounds in a season, but the normal aver- age is approximately 3 to 5 million pounds.
Today there are over 120 grow- ers in the Flathead region dedi- cated to producing the savory cher- ries, which have become the lake’s iconic fruit.
And it all dates back to the one orchard planted by Estey, who passed away at the age of 85 in the spring of 1950. She was buried at the C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery in Kalispell, and her legacy remains as the matriarch of Flathead Lake cherries.
TODAY THERE ARE OVER 120 GROWERS IN THE FLATHEAD REGION DEDICATED TO PRODUCING THE SAVORY CHERRIES, WHICH HAVE BECOME THE LAKE’S ICONIC FRUIT.
JULY 20, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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