Records show that peanuts were commercially growl in South Carolina around 1800 and used for oil, food and a substitute for cocoa. However, peanuts were primarily considered a food for the poor and for livestock and were not extensively grown in the U.S.

The Civil War marked the first notable increase in peanut consumption as soldiers, both Northern and Southern, looked for more food. They even wrote a song about peanuts, "Eating Goober Peas" Soldiers took their taste for peanuts back home with them and peanut were sold freshly roasted by street vendors, at baseball games and circles during the last half of the 19th century.

The practice of deep roasting, then grinding peanuts, to make a rather poor substitute for coffee was used during our Civil War by the South. This didn't help the peanut's reputation in the United States.

The peanut made a giant leap in popularity at the 1904 World's Fair where it as introduced as Peanut Butter.

There are 16,000 peanut farms in nine primary growing states in the U.S. These are operated mostly by family farmers who grow an average of 98 acres of peanuts each year on a 3-year rotation usually with cotton, corn, soybeans and grass crops. Farmers will sell their peanuts in the  domestic market for about 31.5 cents a pound in 1996 --a 5% decrease from 1995.*

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