Hop harvest is under way in the Yakima Valley, and for craft beer lovers that means it’s fresh hop beer season. About 75% of all hops grown in the USA are grown right here in Washington state, and we have the history to prove it.
Earlier this year, a Colorado woman reached out to us with an offer to purchase negatives from a WWII era photo shoot featuring workers at Yakima Chief Ranches harvesting hops here in the valley.
As history nerds who also happen to work for Yakima Chief Ranches at our day job, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get our hands on the original negatives. Fast forward a few days and we were warming up the scanner to make ultra-high-resolution digital images to forward on to the current owners of the company.
When we bought these negatives, we were given the name of the photographer and a brief history of his work. Alfred H. Mellett (1911-2007) was a prolific commercial photographer born in Wakefield, Massachusetts who was employed by the department of Public Works where he photographed hydroelectric and construction projects around the United States.
In the early 1940s, Alfred was in Washington State documenting the construction of the Hanford Works facility, and he likely took a detour to the Yakima Valley during this time to photograph hop harvest at Yakima Chief Ranches in the lower Yakima Valley.
He later went on to travel the world documenting construction projects, but we’re lucky to have this snapshot of our local hop heritage, and we’re grateful to whoever kept detailed records of his work that allowed these negatives to find their way back to the valley.
