Alexander W. Livingston (1821-1898), a Reynoldsburg, Ohio seedsman, in 1870 developed the first commercially successful variety of tomato. Known as “The Father of the modern tomato” his lovely house still stands and is part of a delightful park on what used to be the outskirts of Reynoldsburg, Ohio.
Built in 1865, now on the National Register of Historic Places
Entrance to the house, which is open for tours
Vintage furnishings in the house
Information sign
The other side
Nice park and trails on the grounds.
This park is no doubt quite lovely in spring when the trees and flowers open up. There are some great old fashioned tire swings and even a teeter-totter for the kids to enjoy, and of course lots of picnic tables. The City of Reynoldsburg has made a great area for recreation for its citizens.
Roadtirement 
Nothing like tomato based history. You never think about having to develop a commercial tomato. But, when you look at the history of corn from it’s early indigenous days, the differences are amazing. It looks like a beautiful park.
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Yes, the history of corn is also wild, and still ongoing! There are thee seed corn companies, always working on new hybrids, in our home county alone. Must be thousands across the country.
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It’s corny isn’t it? When we lived in Madrid, Spain, the vendor who I bought frozen vegetables from had a couple on corn on the cobs in his case one day. I said “You have carn?” He pulled a big bag of frozen corn out from under the counter, and asked if I wanted some. Of course I did. He said he had to keep it under the counter or people would quit buying vegetables from him. So I could only buy corn when no other customers were around. Buying corn in Madrid was like buying drugs.
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How strange and fun…
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Europeans thing corn is animal food. A Spaniard told me she got corn by eating Jamon Serrano. I had a tired student who said she couldn’t drink coffee because she was alergic to milk.
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Sounds like she likes a bit of coffee in her milk, too bad she was allergic. And thinking corn for animal feed in a way makes sense, as most of the field corn does go to finish cattle and hogs in or area. You were teaching over there?
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We didn’t intend to teach anything when we went over, but since we had residency, sin-trabajo, one of our friends, a prosecutor, nonetheless, said they needed long-term, well-educated people like us to teach English instead of the young tourists on 3-month visas passing through trying to earn extra money. I told him it was illegal for us to work. He said “no pasa nada” and he showed us where to place ads, etc. The language academies glommed onto us because of the reason our friend stated. I even had a student who was a Spanish IRS agent. I learned a lot about the system from him. I also taught business classes for the European University for a year. I went to Portugal once a month to teach one of the classes.
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What a unique experience. You were fortunate to have that interesting opportunity! Thanks for sharing, Tim.
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We did a lot of interesting things when we were in Spain. Mostly music, dance and art, but we participated in a lot of cultural activities. Our nephew, who is a professional soccer player, got a job teaching for a public school in southern Spain, and has been there for about a month now. He’s getting involved with the local semi-professional soccer team, which is really cool. It can be hard for single foreigners to get connected socially in Spain. Spaniards are very clickish and reluctant to accept any outsiders into their groups. Since the Spaniards love soccer, he has a common interested that gives him an advantage. We had music, dance and as a family, we got to me people while all our kids played together in the park every afternoon.
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Very interesting, Tim. Sounds like your nephew has a great start over there. Good for him…
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That is a beautiful old house, Maj. It is interesting to know when and who started off the tomato business in this country, too.
Here is another tomato, developed in the 1930s, with an interesting history. The variety is called Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter.
https://www.southernexposure.com/products/mortgage-lifter-radiator-charlie-s-tomato/
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That is a very dense looking tomato! Thank you for sharing. Do you garden?
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Rick and I have a small farm in western Oregon up in the Cascade foothills. We’ve had good luck with SESE seeds. As for tomatoes, we’ve honed it down to the OTV Brandywine and Amy’s Sugar Gem varieties. Those seem to do best in our climate. We can the ripe ones as crushed tomatoes and pickle the green ones.
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Your farm sounds very nice and serene. Certainly in a beautiful part of the country!
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