While wheat may have been the primary cash crop in the late 19th and into the 20th century, it wasn’t the only one. Warm summer days combined with cool nights make west central Minnesota a great place to grow cucumbers. And for a time, cucumbers provided a major source of income for New York Mills area farmers.

German immigrant Herman Thiessen came to America in 1896 and worked for the Claussen Pickle Company in Chicago. He moved to Omaha two years later where he began making pickles in his apartment. Since Nebraska proved too hot for growing good cucumbers, Thiessen began looking for better growing locations. This led him to Minnesota where he contracted with farmers to grow cucumbers.

Seven-eight weeks a year sorting sheds were active places. Local workers were hired to sort and pack cucumbers into vats of brine. They sat over the winter until spring when they were loaded into special tank cars and shipped by rail to Omaha for final processing.
New York Mills was an especially good location to raise and salting cucumbers. In fact, when Thiessen announced his company would only open one station in 1939, it was in New York Mills. The March 7, 1939 Fergus Falls Daily Journal reported that “four carloads of cucumbers have been shipped from the tanks here this winter, the stock being solid and crisp, the remaining stock is being shipped out to make room for the 1939 crop.” Each tank held 850 bushels of cucumbers.

The cucumber harvest was so important that in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, New York Mills held a Pickle Festival, sponsored by Theissen Pickle Co. and the New York Mills Civic & Commerce highlighted by the crowning of a Pickle Queen.

There is a story told that some local young boys took advantage of the open slatted floors of the loading deck at the factory to cash in on a lucrative side business.. As the cucumbers were being loaded, a good amount would fall through the deck boards and onto the ground below. They were quick to take advantage where they saw the opportunity, gather the cucumbers and sell them back to the factory. This worked well until their mom found out because they kept receiving checks but didn’t know how to sign their names to cash them. Youth’s ingenuity at it’s finest!