Owner of Washington’s largest apple farm has died

YAKIMA – Bill Evans, who with his wife Jeannette built a tiny farm into one of the largest fruit companies in Washington, has died at the age of 87. Evans died early Tuesday.

Evans started farming on 10 acres in Naches Heights in 1949. Over the next almost seven decades the couple created the state’s single largest apple growing operation.

The Yakima Herald-Republic reported that nearly all of Evans Fruit’s 9,000 acres were in apples. That’s about 5.7 percent of the state’s 148,000 acres of apple orchards, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The company also runs a number of fruit packing houses in the Yakima Valley.

Evans continued to work at his business right to his death.