Mesa Orchards

For more than half a century after 1910, this area was covered by an apple orchard of nearly 1400 acres, thought to be the largest in the United States under one management. Investors, mostly from the eastern U.S., bought 10-acre shares to finance the project. An eight mile wooden flume carried water for irrigation from the Middle Fork of the Weiser River, and in 1920, a unique gravity tramway carried fruit 3 1/2 miles north to a rail siding. Production lasted until about 1960, when frozen crops and production problems led to its demise.

Idaho · United States