The bold adventurers who ranged through Central America toppling governments and creating the sprawling United Fruit Co. banana empire are long gone. There was Lorenzo Dow Baker, the founder, a Massachusetts schooner captain who got into bananas back in 1870 when he found that the fruit he skeptically picked up for 25ยข a bunch in Jamaica fetched $2.50 a bunch or more in New York. There was Minor C. Keith, who hacked through Central American jungles a railroad line that, according to legend, cost a human life for every tie in the first 25 miles. And then there was Russian-born...
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