When David Benscoter left a 24-year career in federal law enforcement, he didn’t think he’d spend his time chasing down vanishing apple cultivars. But the premise of lost apples intrigued him, and he put his detective skills to work to piece together when, where and why certain apples were planted in the late 1800s in the Inland Empire.
While some homesteads are gone, Benscoter realized many of their apple trees remained. By cross-referencing plat maps, old nursery flyers, and records from apple entries in local county fairs, he spent the last 10 years hunting for big, gnarled trees in hopes of identifying rare or “lost” apples. The result is the book “Lost Apples: The Search for Rare and Heritage Apples in the Pacific Northwest.” Benscoter collaborated with Linda Hackbarth on the book, which was published last September by Sandpoint’s Keokee Books.
Benscoter applies historical knowledge—searching in low points next to water or on any land too rough for farm equipment, where homesteaders would have planted fruit trees—and takes the reader on a regional overview in “Lost Apples.” Photos from early-1900s fruit catalogues and ads in local papers like the “Palouse Gazette” add interest to this book.
While there are a few renown “apple detectives” in the U.S., Benscoter is one of the first to retrace apple history in the PNW. His close-to-the-land investigation includes familiar places like Steptoe Butte. Benscoter sends promising samples to apple identifiers in Oregon, who, in part, compare them to the historic USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, excerpts of which appear throughout “Lost Apples.”
In 2013, Benscoter’s work led to the discovery of the once-lost apple known as “Fall Jeneting,” which he collected from a tree on the side of the road in Colfax. He since started the Lost Apple Project, dedicated to identifying and preserving heritage (pre-1920s) apple trees and orchards in the Pacific Northwest, and is hunting for more apples before they are lost to climate or time. “Lost Apples” is a thorough read for any history fan.
