Diskussion:Crystal City (Texas)
Heutiger und früherer Anteil von Crystal City und Zavala County an der US-Spinatproduktion, Belege
BearbeitenIn the United States, California and Arizona combined accounted for 90 percent of fresh-market spinach production in 2004 and 84 percent of the harvested acres of fresh-market spinach. Three-quarters of all U.S. spinach acreage was dedicated to fresh spinach production. (Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, http://www.agmrc.org/agmrc/commodity/vegetables/spinach/spinachprofile.htm )
Texas was producing 80 percent of the nation's spinach by 1948, [...] One of the largest spinach canneries in the world located at Crystal City in 1951, and there is a freezing plant processing spinach currently in Uvalde. [...] Texas was the leading spinach-producing state during the 1950s. [...] Crystal City in Zavala County, known as the "Spinach Capital," erected a statue of the cartoon character Popeye in 1937. (Handbook of Texas, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/afs1.html )
During my trip to Crystal City, the self-proclaimed Spinach Capital of the World, I learned a few other interesting facts about the Texas spinach industry that didn't make it into my column: Texas was the country's biggest spinach producer until the 1950s, when it began losing market share to California. The first spinach was planted in the winter of 1917-1918 on four acres in Zavala County, near Crystal City, as an experiment. The first commercial crop came one year later. The peak season for Winter Garden spinach production was probably 1930-1931, when 3,959 railcar loads was shipped from Crystal City. (Houston Chronicle, http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy/2006/10/eat_your_spinac.html )