Hey Blake,
The words “United Fruit Company” and “1920” are visible on a building downtown on St. Charles Avenue. I’m somewhat familiar with the company and its legendary owner Sam Zemurray, but what more can you tell me about the building?
For much of the 20th century, United Fruit Co., like its successor, Chiquita Brands International, was the top banana in the tropical fruit and produce business — specifically, the banana trade. Founded in 1899, the story of the mammoth company and the biography of its legendary onetime owner Samuel Zemurray, the Russian-born entrepreneur known as “Sam the Banana Man,” have filled several books.
In this space, however, we’ll focus on United Fruit’s former headquarters in the 300 block of St. Charles Avenue. The Bank of New Orleans was established there in 1857, in a building that more than a decade later housed the headquarters of the Louisiana State Lottery. As United Fruit Company grew in the mid-1900s, it purchased the building and moved its local offices there…