Gaye LeBaron's article in today's Press Democrat, Taking a Look Back at Sonoma County's Long Agricultural, Immigrant History, provides the inspiration for this post.
According to the Healdsburg Enterprise, Milton Wasserman, owner of a 180 acre hop ranch northwest of Santa Rosa, estimated that six thousand bales of hops, totaling 10,000,000 pounds of green blossoms were to be harvested in Sonoma County during the fall of 1926. Pickers were paid $1.25 per 100 pounds and harvesting began in August. The owners of the Wohler Ranch in Healdsburg, hired 1,000 pickers. On September 10, 1926, the Sotoyome Scimitar reported that 97,000 pounds of hops had been dried in 24 hours at the Wohler Ranch.
Access to a digital version of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Sotoyome Scimitar, and many of other newspapers is available at no charge via the California Digital Newspaper Collection.
Additional information on the history of Sonoma County's hop industry can be found at the Sonoma County History & Genealogy Library, the Healdsburg Museum, and the Windsor Historical Society all of which will be participating in the Sonoma County Archives Crawl on Saturday, October 5, 2019. Stay tuned for more information on that exciting event!
