USS Mizar (AF-12) was the United Fruit Company fruit, mail and passenger liner Quirigua that served as a United States Navy Mizar-class stores ship in World War II.
USS Mizar (AF-12)
Quirigua at Brewer Ship Yard, Staten Island, N.Y. to be converted, 6 June 1941.
The United Fruit Company was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of the Boston Fruit Company with Minor C. Keith's banana-trading enterprises. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Entrance façade of the old United Fruit Building at 321 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana
Banana company staff in Jamaica as part of United Fruit Company campaign to promote tourism
Docks of the United Fruit Company in New Orleans, 1922
An illustration from The Golden Caribbean