The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 953 SIDNEY W. MEANS. The late Sidney W. Means, formerly a wholesale fruit merchant of Yakima, resident manager with the Ryan Fruit Company, was born in Marysville, Kansas, in 1883, a son of William E. and Emma H. (Hunt) Means, and died October 29, 1918. The paternal grandfather was John W. Means, who took his family to Marshall county, Kansas, in 1861, removing to that district from Missouri. He became a pioneer settler of the Sunflower state, where he extensively engaged in farming. His son. William E. Means, also took up the occupation of farming in Kansas but he and his wife are now residents of Yakima. Sidney W. Means completed his public school education by graduation from the high school at Blue Rapids, Kansas, and afterward he attended the State Agricultural College. He made his initial step in the business world in connection with the dry goods and clothing trade, being active along those lines in Kansas and Nebraska. The year 1908 witnessed his arrival in Yakima, where he became associated with the Barnes-Woodin Company, in charge of their clothing department. In 1912 he severed his connection with that house and went with Richie & Gilbert for one year in the fruit business. He was afterward inspector for the State Horticultural Department and for two years he was superintendent in charge of the warehouse and cold storage department of the Fruit Growers Storage & Supply Company. He next organized the Producers Fruit Company of Oregon and subsequently the Means & Ballard Company in the conduct of their fruit business, which ultimately they sold to the Ryan Fruit Company, Mr. Means remaining as resident manager. The Ryan Fruit Company is a reorganization of the Ryan-Newton Company of Spokane and was organized in January, 1917, with a capital of a million dollars. The head offices are in Spokane, with T. F. Ryan as the president and R. T. Dilworth as the secretary and treasurer. They have thirty-two houses in six western states, theirs being one of the largest organizations of the trade in the west. They have an average daily output of forty cars of fruit and vegetables and not only buy and sell vegetables but act also as jobbers and distributors. The Yakima plant was established in 1917, buying out Means & Ballard, and the business is conducted at Nos. 25-27 North First avenue. This plant supplies their other houses with Yakima produce and shipped four hundred cars of fruit and vegetables in 1917. The Yakima plant includes a large common storage building fifty-five by one hundred and seventy feet and three stories in height. They are represented by buyers all over the valley and employ here more than sixty people in the busy season and in addition to sales rooms and warehouse have a boxing and packing plant. Mr. Means' experience in connection with the fruit trade well qualified him for the work which he undertook in this connection and he was regarded as a most valued representative of the corporation. On the 26th of June, 1907, Mr. Means was married to Miss Isabel Tibbetts, of Beatrice, Nebraska, and they had two children, Beverly Esther and Marion. He belonged to the Commercial Club and to the Business Men's Association and also to the Yakima Traffic Association and was deeply interested in the work of those organizations to promote business conditions and improve everything that had to do with the commercial upbuilding and development of this section of the country. he voted with the republican party and was a firm believer in its principles but not an office seeker. His religious faith was that of the Presbyterian church and his life was ever guided by its teachings. He was a man of genuine worth whom to know was to respect and honor and during the years of his residence in Yakima he made many warm friends, who deeply deplored his untimely end on October 29, 1918, when death called him at the early, age of but thirty-five years. His memory is sacred to his immediate family to whose welfare he was most unselfishly devoted, making them ever his foremost thought and care. ******************************** Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in January 2008 by Jeffrey L. Elmer. Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.