Ontario plant processes 15 percent of nation’s frozen corn; state suggests area form a mosquito abatement district

Here are two stories from the Oct. 6, 1952 issue of The Argus-Observer.

Nephi Grigg, general manager of the Oregon Frozen Foods plant in Ontario, said his plant processed 15 percent of the frozen corn sent to market in 1952.

The plant started its run July 13 and through the previous Saturday employed 500 workers in two shifts to complete the run. Grigg estimated the payroll for the period was a quarter of a million dollars.

“We think---we always have thought and still do---corn has a great potential as a money crop in this area. It’s getting stronger every year,” he told the newspaper.
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Following a survey in the Nyssa area by three members of the Oregon State Board of Health on Sept. 3 and 4, the state officials suggested “immediate consideration should be given by responsible officials in Nyssa and other towns in the vicinity, both Oregon and Idaho, to the formation of a mosquito abatement district.”

Malheur County’s health officer, Dr. L. A. Maulding, said he requested the state survey after a local polio case was listed as “symptomatically suggestive of equine encephalomvelitis.” The story said that is a virus carried by horses and “communicated to man by the Aedus mosquito.”