Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Approximately 60 percent of today's commercially grown apples can trace their origin to Stark Brothers Nurseries and Orchards, the company that first introduced the Red Delicious and the Golden Delicious apple varieties to the world. The company celebrated its 175th anniversary in 1991 and continues to be a world leader in the production and sales of quality fruit and fruit trees.

In 1816, James Hart Stark and his family settled on land that would become part of Louisiana, Missouri, bringing with them a few apple scions from their native Kentucky. Stark grafted the scions onto wild crab apple seedlings. The trees gained a favorable reputation and produced a flourishing local trade. By the mid-1820s, orchardists from across the region purchased Stark trees. Thousands of barrels of apples were shipped annually to the North and East. In 1835, William, the only one of James's seventeen children to join the business, assumed leadership of the company until his death in 1880.

Prior to 1893, the most common apple variety was the Ben Davis. Although easy to grow, it did not have a pleasing taste. Clarence Stark, a son of William who ran the business from 1880 to 1914, sponsored a contest in 1893 to find better tasting apples. While sampling an array of apple varieties, he deemed a particular one "delicious" and awarded it first prize. After locating the Iowa farmer who grew the tree, the nursery purchased the rights to the apple and began to market Stark Red Delicious apples. Stark overcame orchardists' initial rejection of the apple by including a free bundle of Red Delicious trees with each order. The 1914 discovery of an apple shaped like the Red Delicious but golden in color proved to be another milestone of the Stark Brother's Nursery. Today, the Red Delicious and the Golden Delicious are the two most popular apples on the world market.

By the time the first Stark catalog appeared in 1894, the company sold peach, apricot, plum, pear, and cherry trees, roses, and other ornamental trees and plants. Due to their prolific advertising, colorful catalogs, and the consistent use of the scion/grafting method for tree propagation, the Stark Brother's Nursery had garnered an international reputation and clientele by the turn of the twentieth century. The nursery still thrives under Stark family leadership, making it one of the oldest family-owned and -operated companies in the nation.

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