The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 970 

LLOYD GARRETSON.

Lloyd Garretson, prominently known as a wholesale fruit man of Washington,
conducting business in Yakima under the name of the Pacific Fruit & Produce
Company of Portland, has developed interests of extensive proportions,
constituting an important element in the commercial activity of the city. Yakima
is the center of the shipping for this company, while the home office is located
at Portland and the jobbing trade taken care of front that point, by his
partner, George Youell. The work of the Pacific Fruit & Produce Company entities
the officers to more than passing notice as representative business men of the
northwest, among them, Mr. Garretson. He was born in Iowa in 1872, a son of
James W. and Lucy S. (Monday) Garretson, who were natives of Pennsylvania and of
Virginia respectively. They became residents of Iowa in the '50's, and the
father then worked at the carpenter's trade, which he had learned in early life.
He remained in the middle west for a long period but in 1890 removed to the
Pacific coast, settling in Tacoma, Washington, where both he and his wife passed
away. Their son, Lloyd Garretson, acquired a public school education in Iowa and
when a youth learned the carpenter's trade under his father, with whom he worked
until attaining his majority. Subsequently to the removal of the family to the
northwest he purchased a retail grocery store in Tacoma, at 42nd and Stephens
streets and there continued in business until 1894, when he organized the
Pacific Fruit Company of Tacoma, for the conduct of a small retail business of
that character. With the development of his trade he transformed his interests
into a wholesale business and in addition to fruit conducted a general market.
In 1895 he was joined by George Youell in a partnership and under their combined
direction the business grew rapidly and was incorporated in 1906. Mr. Garretson
remained in Tacoma until 1903, when he removed to Yakima to take charge of the
interests of the business at this point, Yakima being the seat of the head
shipping office, while Portland has the home office, and the jobbing trade is
cared for at that point. The business had been organized under the name of the
Pacific Fruit & Produce Company of Tacoma in 1894, with the head office at
Portland, while in 1902 the branch house at Yakima was opened, at which time the
company utilized the warehouse of the Pioneer Lumber Company. In 1906 they built
a warehouse at No. 5 North First avenue -- a one-story brick structure. This was
enlarged in 1910 by the addition of a basement and a cold storage plant. In 1915
they purchased the Perry building adjoining and thus secured a space one hundred
by one hundred and eighty feet. The building is two stories in height with
basement and there is cold storage equipment for eighty cars. The company has
its own boxing and shipping plants and has established a branch house at Selah,
Washington, where they have a warehouse seventy-five by one hundred feet. This
was opened in 1917. In 1913 they established a warehouse at Zillah, thirty by
seventy feet, and they also have two warehouses at Grandview, conducted under
the name of the E. T. Blew Company, which were established in 1916. Their
warehouse at Kennewick, established in 1915, is fifty by one hundred feet and
their warehouse at Wenatchee, established in 1914, is one hundred by one hundred
feet with basement. In 1917 they further extended their equipment by securing a
warehouse at Hanford, fifty by seventy feet, one story in height with basement,
and at Wapato they rent a warehouse during the summer months. During 1917 they
handled fourteen hundred car loads of fruit. Their business not only covers the
Yakima valley but many outside points and in all they have forty branches in
Oregon, Washington and California. The company farms three hundred acres of
land, half of which they purchased in 1915, which is devoted to diversified
crops, seventy acres being planted to fruit. This end of the business is under
the management of John Koraski. The officers of the Pacific Fruit & Produce
Company are: George Youell, the president and treasurer, and a resident of
Portland; and Lloyd Garretson, vice president and secretary. Under the direction
of these men an immense business has been built up and developed that covers
much of the Pacific coast country north of San Francisco. There is no phase of
the fruit and produce business with which they are not thoroughly familiar,
from the time of production in the orchard until the sales are completed in the
eastern markets.

In 1896 Mr. Garretson was married to Miss Sophia Margaret Rommerman, of Tacoma,
and they have three children: James Warren, nineteen years of age, a member of
the United States army, now, in France, who was a student in the University of
Washington; Helen May, aged fifteen; and John, a lad of nine years.

Mr. Garretson belongs to Yakima Lodge, No. 318, B. P. O. E. he is also a member
of the Yakima Country Club and of the Yakima Commercial Club, of the Yakima
Valley Business Men's Association and the Traffic and Credit Association and of
the last named was one of the organizers. He is likewise a trustee and the
treasurer of the Fruit Growers' Agency.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in January 2008 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.