Scion of Hawkeye

The Iowa story of the Red Delicious apple is best told on the Stark Bro’s website. What stands out to me is that 1893, the year of the first International New Fruit Show where Jesse Hiatt of Peru, Iowa exhibited his chance seedling, the Hawkeye apple, also saw the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Exposition embodied the late nineteenth century’s drive to catalog, classify, and display the world’s cultures, species, and artifacts—a hallmark of the Age of Imperialism.

Clarence Stark was not a fan of the Ben Davis apple widely planted in Iowa and the Midwest at that time. While Ben Davis stood up to winter, grew almost anywhere, and did not bruise easily, it lacked flavor. Stark literally got on his horse and went out to find better. When he found the Hawkeye at the New Fruit Show, he immediately liked it. Somehow Hiatt’s association with it had gotten lost. The two came together at the second show.

Clarence was elated. He could not get to Iowa fast enough. The Stark brothers made the trip immediately and bought the sole rights from Hiatt, named the apple “Stark® Delicious” (only after naming ‘Golden Delicious’ in 1914 did it become ‘Red Delicious’) and secured a registered trademark. (A Delicious Discovery: Red Delicious Apple, Stark Bro’s Nurseries and Orchards).

That Red Delicious was first found in Iowa is the reason I planted it in my backyard in April 1995. It has been a good tree. Even with large parts of it damaged in wind storms and the Aug. 10, 2020 derecho, it produces an amazing amount of fruit every other year. If Stark Bro’s propagated it to the extent flavor was diminished after adapting the cultivar to mass markets, the tree in my backyard continues to produce great-tasting fruit. I’d say they were delicious, but that would be too punny.

I am thankful to have planted this Red Delicious tree 30 years ago. It came from a time of robber barons seeking to buy anything of value and profit from it. To a minor extent, Stark Bro’s did that as well. As the apple business changes, stores are less reliant on Red Delicious. Because of the flavor, I wouldn’t trade my tree for anything.