The Peculiar Truth about the Banana Baron

• Mobile, Alabama 1898: A 22-year-old named Samuel Zemurray stood at the wharf and watched ships from Central America unloading their cargo. The young man noticed how dock workers went through fruit shipments and discarded certain bananas into piles. When he enquired why, he was told those bananas were already too ripe, therefore they would arrive at their destinations as unsalable spoiled goods.

• Zemurray, who had been a hustling entrepreneur since age 18, saw an opportunity. He could sell those fresh bananas by getting them to market faster.

• Beginning with no more than $150 in startup cash, the immigrant built an empire.

• He grew so powerful that, fourteen years later, Zemurray orchestrated a coup against the president of Honduras.

• He was born Schmuel Zmurri in Ukraine in 1877. His family’s poverty grew worse after the father died when Samuel was 14. So the Jewish teenager left his mother and six siblings behind to travel to the United States.

• Adopting the Westernized name Samuel and altering his last name, he joined an aunt and uncle in Selma, Alabama where they operated a general store. Young Sam worked at his uncle’s store but also hustled for extra money by doing all manner of odd jobs. Within four years he had earned enough to purchase his entire family’s voyage to America to join him.

• Bananas were unknown in his native land, but after eating his first banana in his new adopted country Sam was hooked. He dropped everything to focus on his new enterprise.

• With his limited resources, he bought up the ripe bananas at the docks and sold them locally for a slim profit. Then he invested in a train boxcar to transport his fruit further afield to nearby cities. He out-hustled the established fruit sellers, and within a few years Sam’s bananas were shipped from the gulf shores up the Mississippi River all the way to Chicago.

• He gained a solid business reputation in Mobile and became known as Sam the Banana Man.

• 1903: The United Fruit Company led the industry, and they approached Sam with a deal. But not to acquire his company. Instead, they offered him all the ripe bananas he could peddle. They made additional profits instead of losses, and Sam’s business flourished.

• Ever the hustler, Zemurray traveled to Central America to build plantations and grow his own exports rather than relying on United Fruit. He bought a failed banana company in Honduras called Cuyamel, as well as a rundown steamship operation. Zemurray grew the fruit in Central America on his own farms, shipped it on his own boats, and paid to have it transported by train to various markets across the US.

• Bankers as far away as Boston gave him loans, and he was in debt up to his ears. So he returned to Honduras to meet with government officials and somehow - probably though bribery - he talked them into an exclusive deal whereby he paid no export taxes.

• With that agreement, Cuyamel became a financial rival to United Fruit. While the latter was a giant conglomerate, Sam’s company was leaner but just as profitable.

• 1910: He took up residence in Honduras to personally oversee the banana growing business. Sam even joined workers in the field. By learning every aspect of farming the fruit, he innovated in its production. But Zemurray was also criticized for poor worker conditions, strong-arm tactics against competitors, and rampant bribery.

• Then the US government caused trouble for Sam in Honduras. To pay off debts owed to America, Honduran taxes had to be raised. That would be ruinous for Sam’s Cuyamel Fruit Company.

• So he helped orchestrate a coup.

• 1912: With 100 mercenary soldiers on his payroll, Zemurray acquired an old Naval warship. He then organized local rebels to threaten a government takeover and install his man as the new president. It was a success.

• The tax issue disappeared. Zemurray’s business thrived. He eventually paid off all debts and became rich. The US government was not happy. Neither was United Fruit, who saw Zemurray as a threat to their business.

• So they bought him out.

• 1929: Cuyamel was purchased by United Fruit. Sam became a major shareholder in United as a result - their mistake.

• A few years later, with United in decline, Sam took over the company and named himself the president. He had full control of America’s banana business.

• From impoverished small-time fruit peddler to political meddler to wealthy tycoon in 30 years.

• Samuel Zemurray retired in 1951, lived out his remaining ten years in New Orleans, and donated to Tulane University. His daughter, Dolores Zemurray Stone, became an archeologist, author, and philanthropist.

• ALSO:

• Was Zemurray the source of the term ‘banana republic?’ Not really. Author O. Henry had coined it at the turn of the 20th Century. But Zemurray’s political power in Honduras was the very definition of the phrase.