MONETT, Mo. (KY3) - Along the rail tracks in Monett, printed in purple and gold, a sign proclaims the city as the “Strawberry Capital of the World.”

“It was quite big,” lifelong resident Rod Anderson said.

A history buff, Rod has helped collect strawberry-related treasures from years past for the Monett Historical Society’s Museum. You can visit it at 422 East Broadway in Monett.

Strawberries were introduced to southwest Missouri in the 1880s and the cash crop was huge for Monett.

Many German immigrants and displaced Waldensians took to the cash crop.

“They probably had, at one time in Lawrence County,10,000 acres of strawberries,” Rod said about the 1920s. “Monett had at least $1,000,000 worth of berries coming through the Monett Fruit Growers Association.”

Monett had the auction house for the area growers. The season was short and helped supplement the farmers’ other income. Thanks to the Frisco Railroad making Monett a major hub, it perfectly blended with the berry business.

Something unique Monett had that made it all work: the Railway Ice Company. It made sure the delicate berries could survive the train ride.

“They shipped to Boston,” Rod said. “They shipped to Canada. They shipped to Dakotas, Iowa, and Illinois.”

The “Roaring ‘20s” were the heyday for the strawberries of Barry and Lawrence Counties. But by the next decade, the industry took a hit.

“Once the (Great) Depression hit, the value of the berries were down and your labor was still there,” Rod said. “So (the strawberry industry) started decreasing.”

Today, instead of acres of strawberries you’ll find murals of strawberries around town. Monett is proud of its history. As Rod says, it’s important to pay attention to the past.

“One thing to take away is, what’s important today may not be important 20 years from now; so a town evolves,” Rod said. “You’ve got Jack Henry. You’ve got window manufacturing here that’s second to none nationwide. And so your town’s going to continue evolving.”

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