GRAVETTE -- The gold rush has just begun. It may not create such a frenzy as the 1849 gold rush in California, but area residents are scrambling to cash in on a crop some call "black gold."
Black walnut trees are beginning to drop their nuts and the annual buying season has begun. Many local youngsters appreciate this chance to make a little extra pocket money.
Barbara Bates, who operates Bates Auto Sales and Bates Upholsters four miles west of Gravette, began buying walnuts today, Oct. 1, and says she will continue through Nov. 1, except for Oct. 6 when she will be closed.
This is Barb's 13th year buying nuts for Hammons Products Company. She is assisted by her son Jodie. Last year they purchased about 99,000 pounds.
Black walnuts were once a big part of the Gravette economy. The Gravette Shelling Company opened in November 1936 by Boston native Mandel Raffe in association with Gravette brothers Clifton and Allen McAllister. Four other Gravette residents later became partners in the business, Lloyd Harris, his sister Bertha Harris, uncle Earl Pierce, and Bob Dugan.
In the early years of operation, shelling company employees cracked the nuts by hand; but employees and management designed and built machines to crack and dry the nuts and separate the shells from the kernels. In the 1950s and 1960s the plant employed about 150 people during the cracking season.
Gravette benefited from the byproducts of the plant in more ways than one as the city streets, which were still dirt, were "paved" with walnut shells. Later, crushed and mixed with other products, they were used as abrasives for cleaning aircraft engines, stripping paint and even cleaning the Statue of Liberty in its bicentennial year. Train carloads of the shells were shipped all over the country.
Gravette Shelling Company became a subsidiary of Hammons Products Company in 1965, according to Susan Zartman, director of marketing for Hammons. They continued operating a plant here until 1998.
Hammons Products Company was started in 1946 in the little town of Stockton, Mo., when grocer Ralph Hammons couldn't keep enough black walnuts on his grocery store shelves. Realizing the huge potential of this locally grown crop, he bought a cracking machine and began buying nuts from his hard-working Ozarks neighbors who gathered them each fall. As black walnut products continued to grow in popularity, the company expanded. And now, almost 70 years later, the company is still family-owned, with Ralph's son Dwain and grandson Brian involved in its operation.
Hammons has forecast that this year's crop will be a better than normal "off-year" crop. "After last year's strong harvest of 30 million pounds, we expected this year to be down and it is," they say. "But the crop looks pretty good in Missouri and adjoining states, so we're expecting maybe around 20 million pounds. That will be enough to ensure customers continued availability through 2015 of bold-flavored black walnut nut meats and also ground nut shells for industrial uses."
Hulling station operators began buying nuts this week at 215 locations in 11 states. Black walnuts are one of the few crops still harvested by hand.
Folks who want to avoid some of the back-breaking labor can purchase one of Hammons' "Nut Wizards." The "Nut Wizard" has a long handle with a barrel-shaped end which, when rolled over the nuts, picks them up "like magic."
Area locations where walnuts can be sold is in Gentry, where Larry Curran will be operating a huller directly behind the Nelson Feed Company store at 450 E. Main. His hours of operation will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday.
General News on 10/01/2014