Mosier Family Maintains Freshness for More Than 60 Years
By Rodger Nichols
Tucked away at the base of the cliff on East Second Street, next to Hi-Way House, is a neon-green building that looks like a double-car garage. It’s closed in late fall and winter, but every summer its big red doors roll up, the sign rolls out and the humble building transforms into a market. For 65 years, Evans Fruit Stand has been the place locals find the freshest fruits and vegetables, as well as jams, honey, and various pickled items.
This local institution has been operated for more than 6 decades by the Evans family of Mosier. Forrest Evans Sr. founded the operation, and his daughter-in-law, Raegan, has managed the stand for the past 24 years.
Prior to taking over operations from her mother-in-law, Raegan worked for dentists in The Dalles. She said when she married Forrest Evans Jr., she married into the fruit business as well.
The Evans family has had a farm in the Mosier area since Samuel Evans migrated in 1879 and planted 50 acres.
“We grow tree fruit and garlic and plants,” Raegan says. “Originally, the family had another stand out by the aluminum plant and one in Rowena, but this one, which was founded before I was born, has stayed around.”
Evans Fruit Stand opens in late May or early June, once the strawberries are ripe.
“We never know our opening date, but our closing date is Halloween unless it falls on a Saturday because we’re not open Saturdays,” Raegan says.
The Evans farm supplies cherries, pie cherries, peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, and pears. Over the years, the stand has added produce from other area farmers.
Raegan’s husband used to rise at dawn to drive to Troutdale for strawberries. Depending on the day of the week, he would get between 30 and 50 flats of strawberries and expect to sell them the same day. Other berries can last after picking for several days, but strawberries have a short shelf life.
Forrest remembers his father working in the orchard, and his mother, Ardeth, selling the fruit at a roadside stand. In a 2009 Ruralite article, he told writer Lori Russell that customers have stopped at the current location since 1959.
“It was still the old highway then,” he said. “I remember talking about what would happen when the new interstate was completed.”
Other changes he noted include a decline in home canning. In the 1960s and 1970s, some women ordered as many as 7 30-pound boxes of peaches. More recently, it’s been 3- or 4-pound boxes.
The same goes for apples.
“We used to sell bins and bins,” Raegan says. “Now we don’t so much because fewer people still make applesauce or put them up. It’s more just fruit for eating.”
These days, orders are smaller, but customers are much more conscious about the source and whether the farmers used pesticides.
Customers also have greater choices. At 1 point, the demand was only for Red Haven or Elberta peaches. The stand now offers between 15 and 20 varieties.
The fruit stand’s suppliers include Hood River Fruit and Produce and the Maiers family of The Dalles.
“Even though we grow some cherries, we get a lot from here in The Dalles from David and Susan Maiers,” Raegan says. “They deliver, and they’re just super to us.”
The stand also receives produce from Dickey Farms of Bingen, Fujii Farms of Troutdale, and Serres Farms of Oregon City.
These days, the stand also carries a line of jam produced by a Portland company and honey from local beekeepers. There are plenty of vegetables for sale, from corn on the cob to beans and turnips.
Raegan credits lots of people for helping make the business a success over the decades, but none more so than the stand’s clerk, Lisa Gnall.
“She’s been here 19 years, and she is fantastic,” Raegan says.
Evans Fruit Stand is open from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day of the week except Saturday at 2416 East Second Street, The Dalles. The stand accepts Women, Infants, and Children/Farm Direct Nutrition Program vouchers, but not credit cards. It’s cash or check only.