The United Fruit Company was an American corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas), grown on Latin American plantations, and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899, from the merger of Minor C. Keith's banana-trading concerns with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company. 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, Ecuador, and the West Indies. The United Fruit Company Steamship Service provided passenger and cargo ship services under the name of the “Great White Fleet” for over 100 years. The ships were painted white to reflect the tropical sun and help keep the temperature of the bananas lower, hence the name.