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Subject: Bio of J. W. and Frank L. Davis
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 07:35:04 EDT

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

J. W. AND FRANK L. DAVIS are president and secretary, respectively, of the
J. W. Davis Company, whose famous gardens constitute one of the most
interesting and attractive business institutions in the vicinity of Davenport, located
on rural free delivery route No. 1 near Bettendorf. Members of the Davis
family have been remarkable for their genius in the business of gardening, an
occupation they have followed for several generations. The dAvis Gardens at
Davenport are now only one of a half dozen similar institutions in different
parts of the country. The Davises are know as the world's largest growers of
cucumbers, though there output is not limited to that one crop.

They also operate greenhouses at Terre Haute, Indiana; Aurora, Illinois;
Kankakee, Illinois; Glendale, California. These combined plants produce during
the winter months more cucumbers than any other similar organization in the
world, and these cucumbers enter into the menues of many of the largest hotels
from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts.

The father of the Davis brothers was Robert Davis, who followed gardening at
Morrison in White County, Illinois. There are now three of the Davis
Brothers living. W. B. Davis has charge of the garden at Glendale, California, and
has a son, Kenneth. Another brother, who died in 1928, was manager of the
plant at Kankakee, Illinois. J. W. Davis, who was the active head of the
company when the ground was acquired and the plant built at Davenport, has now
given over many of the responsibilities of the management and his brother Frank
L. is the active representative of the company at Davenport. J. W. Davis
married Mary Griffin and has a daughter, Ruth, who is the wife of O. K. Owen,
manager of the Terre Haute plant of the company. Frank L. Davis married Clara
Beckwith and has a daughter, Genevieve. Both brothers are members of the
Davenport Chamber of Commerce, Davenport Country Club and Rotary Club.

The J. W. Davis Company in January, 1911, bought twenty-six acres of bottom
land five miles on the river from Davenport. Of this land now ten acres are
glass, covered with immense green houses, making a great factory for the
production, by the aid of the chemical resources of the soil, by coal for
heating and sunlight, of a continuous product of vegetables and flowers. From the
first the DAvises have specialized in cucumbers, but here are auxiliary and
inter-season crops. During the early summer the houses are used largely for
the production of tomatoes. They also grow in great abundance sweet peas and
chrysanthemums. Greenhouse men all over the country visit the various plants
of the Davis system as models of systematic industry. The business has been
brought to a perfection by arrangements permitting every time and labor
saving device.

The Davis Company ship cucumbers to New York, Baltimore, Boston, Seattle,
Portland, Winnipeg and even south to New Orleans. Their delivery trucks send
out almost daily shipments to every town in Iowa of over 1,000 inhabitants.


Debbie Clough Gerischer
gerischer.rootsweb.com/

Iowa History Site
iagenweb.org/history/index.htm

Scott County
celticcousins.net/scott/index.htm

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