In the early part of the 20th Century the Herman Brothers greenhouse at the intersection of Twenty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue ranked second to the Wilcox operation in size. Roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums were the principal products, but many other flowers were grown in smaller quantities under the company’s 200,000 square feet of glass. Deliveries were made locally and flowers were shipped to other states. Active about the same time, the Fred Meyers greenhouse on Benton Street specialized in plants made for window boxes as well as vegetables.
By 1913 L.H. Reams had established a greenhouse for the wholesale and retail growing of vegetables and flowers at 26th and Avenue E. The operation grew to seventeen greenhouses and was purchased in 1934 by John T. Walton, who had learned the horticultural business during his time as bookkeeper and office manager for J.F. Wilcox and Sons. Walton Greenhouse remained in operation until 1954.
In 1927 Claude Hinman founded C.E. Hinman and Sons wholesale greenhouse just east of town on U.S. Highway Six. Another of the city’s largest greenhouses, It remained family operated until 1987 at which time emphasis was shifted from greenhouse operations to retail sales under the name Flowers by Hinman.
Clarence Hardiman started his greenhouse on North 15th Street as a hobby. A grocer, he built a fifteen by fifty foot greenhouse with glass tops from cigar boxes to raise vegetables for his own use. Grocery store customers wanted to buy the vegetables and what started for fun became a business, eventually replacing the grocery store in 1975.
Seventy-five years ago an observer commented when one gazed at Council Bluffs from atop a bluff on a bight day they had to squint owing to the shimmer of sunlight glistening from so many thousands of acres of glass roofs all over town. Why is this no longer the case? Council Bluffs still has a nursery business, but with smaller operations. The giant greenhouses of the past were expensive to heat and very labor intensive; newer technologies provide innovative ways of getting plants nutrients, water and light in much less space and with less manpower. Overnight shipping also makes it possible to grow plants in places with the optimum environment for each species at a lower cost.
(Story by Richard Warner. Dr. Warner is editor of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County’s “Member Journal.")
