In the 1800s, the produce industry was concentrated on Liberty Avenue downtown, and a railroad ran right down the middle of the street to serve the wholesalers.
Gradually the business moved to the Strip, and in 1906 the tracks in Liberty Avenue were torn up. For a while the produce auctions were conducted in the open air straight from the freight cars, and a 1923 map shows the “produce yard” in the middle of the sea of tracks that built up in the Strip:
In 1926, the railroad built a colossal terminal for the produce business. The Fruit Auction & Sales Building at the northeast end (above) had two tall floors; from there the Produce Terminal stretched five blocks, a quarter-mile long, making a dramatic open plaza of Smallman Street.
After sitting mostly vacant for a while, the building was renovated at a cost of more than $50 million and reopened as a shopping, eating, and entertainment center called “The Terminal.”
