My hometown of Crystal City, Texas, was known as the Spinach Capital of the world in the '20's through the 70's or 80's and still claims that title. The creator of Popeye gave the city the right to use Popeye as a "mascot." I'm not for sure, but I think he gave the city the statue that stands in front of City Hall to this day. Spinach is still grown there and canned by Del Monte, but not as much as in the heydays of the '20's and '30's. Del Monte built their cannery there in the mid 1940's as well as a large farming operation which was abandoned in the 70's when the ground would no longer produce good crops.