♪♪ [Jared McDonald] You don't think of Iowa being an apple state.

But, the story of the Red Delicious apple starts down in Peru and starts with Jesse Hiatt.

[Nebbe] Jesse Hiatt was a quaker farmer who was working in his orchard when he noticed a strange looking seeding growing out of the root of a dead bell flower apple tree.

[Jared McDonald] So, he actually chopped that sprout down once, cleaned up that area, and then the following spring another sprout came up from that same area of that bell flower tree.

So, he decided to leave it be and see what would come of it.

[Nebbe] The sprout became a tree and Hiatt found its apples were unlike anything he had ever seen.

[Jared McDonald] The description of the new apple was a bleached reddish strawberry colored skin and it had five lobes on the bottom, which had never been in an apple before.

So, he tried it, he thought it was the best apple he had ever tried and he actually named it the Hawkeye apple after the Hawkeye state of Iowa.

[Nebbe] Several years later, when a wealthy nursery man named Clarence Stark began a search for a new apple cultivar, Hiatt entered his Hawkeye apples into the contest.

[Jared McDonald] Mr. Stark walked around and actually carried a little booklet in his breast pocket of names for future fruits and vegetables when he came across them and he had had one for many, many years waiting to be used, which was delicious.

[Nebbe] Upon biting into Hiatt's apple, Stark allegedly exclaimed, delicious!

[Jared McDonald] And he was so excited to figure out where these apples came from.

And in the process of shipping and unpacking at the show, Jesse Hiatt's information got lost.

♪♪ [Nebbe] Thankfully, Stark persisted in his search for the perfect apple and he hosted another competition the following year.

And Hiatt, unaware that he had won the previous year, entered again.

This time, the entry form was not lost and Hiatt was rightfully proclaimed the winner.

[Jared McDonald] Mr. Stark was able to get in contact with Jesse Hiatt and the Stark Nursery came and purchased the grafting rights, the plant rights and the seed rights to the then Hawkeye apple, now delicious apple.

The name would later be changed to Red Delicious as more and more apple varieties were discovered.

And though the Red Delicious no longer enjoys the market dominance of its heyday, its story remains a lesson in perseverance and holds a special place in our state's agricultural legacy.

♪♪ [Jared McDonald] There is an apple tree still there to this day.

There is a marker in the field as well.

In our community, it is something we are very proud of.

♪♪