Apple Wizard of Gideon Bay

We take it for granted that people can grow tasty apples in Minnesota, but that hasn’t always been the case. Early settlers missed this fruit so much that some of them used to soak potatoes in vinegar to try and replicate the taste. After 15 years of toil and thousands upon thousands of failures, a Lake Minnetonka settler named Peter M. Gideon finally came up with an edible Minnesota apple. He named it Wealthy to honor his wife (that was her first name) and to symbolize all the hardships they had been through. Gideon had a reputation as an eccentric man with a colorful personality.

If you’d like to read the entire story about this historical figure for whom Gideon Bay on Lake Minnetonka is named, click on the link below. Enjoy!

The Apple Wizard of Gideon Bay. Tonka Times, Sept 2010.

Published version of the story posted with permission of the publisher of Tonka Times magazine.