Here is the ICC”s 1% waybill data on Bananas – IIRC for 1950 or 1956, sorted by tons to destination state, descending:

A lot of speculation can be made from this list – that residents of New Mexico really didn’t much care for bananas; That Maryland used trucks from Baltimore harbor to distribute bananas; That residents of Chicago were either inordinately fond of bananas and/or that Chicago was a center of distribution to other states.

Checking on the ICC’s state to state distribution data I see that I was wrong before in suggesting Chicago was a trans-shipment center – it was not (at least was not done by rail).  So apparently the truth of the matter is that in the early 1950’s the residents of Chicago were (and perhaps still are) inordinately fond of bananas, annually consuming 23.34 pounds of rail shipped bananas per capita (in New Mexico it was a mere 1.6 pounds per capita).

Having grown up near Chicago I feel obliged to go peel and eat one in respect of the pleasure of finding such interesting historical data. YMMV.

Hi Dave,

               Would the banana traffic have been diverted to other destinations while en-route to Chicago?  Or would the bananas be transloaded in Chicago and sent to other destinations?

               I guess my REAL question is whether the bananas at the grocery warehouse in Topeka, KS would have most likely arrived in IC reefers.

Regards,

-Jeff