Standard Fruit Company

The Standard Fruit Company of Louisiana started by the Vaccaro brothers played the major role in building La Ceiba in the 1890's when they started shipping bananas to New Orleans. Along with the United Fruit Company of Cincinnati, they negotiated favourable arrangements with the Honduran government and had a great deal of influence over its affairs - thus making it the original "Banana Republic". Standard Fruit later morphed into Dole Foods, which has dedicated a park next to their operations in La Ceiba, where this photo was taken