Grape festivals give way to bicounty fair, which turns 75 this year

By Gale Metcalf for Senior Times

The love of grapes has always been a sweet sentiment here. Today, it is wine grapes.

Once upon a time, it was juice grapes.

They were a special commodity here – for commerce, for sweetening the air in late summer and early autumn, and for worldwide bragging rights, as Kennewick was home to the largest single Concord grape vineyard in the entire world.

It was that vineyard that produced the essential ingredient for nationwide distribution of grape juice rolling off the assembly lines of Church Grape Juice Co. and then the Welch’s plant in downtown Kennewick.

This month, the region will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Benton Franklin Fair, which has roots in the annual grape festivals and grape carnivals held during the first half of the 20th century.

It was in 1946 and 1947 that the last grape-centered community agricultural festivity was to be, before giving way to our bicounty fair as it is known today.

For many years, the celebrations centered around juice and table grapes, with festivities variously known as the Grape Carnival, Kennewick Fair, and even briefly, the Benton Franklin Fair in the 1930s.

The Great Depression doomed such county fair and community festival-like events, and it wouldn’t be until the mid-1940s that they reawakened when World War II revitalized the area.

In 1946, the Grape Festival Association formed to channel this energy into renewing what had once been a near-annual agricultural celebration.

The objective, according to the late Ken Serier, a longtime Kennewick city attorney, was “to conduct a local talent show and an agricultural fair.”

Serier and Kennewick businessman J.C. Pratt were the primary organizers of the Grape Festival. Pratt operated an automotive garage and ran an early bus line in the TriCities.

Grape Festival festivities spread out from downtown Kennewick, leapfrogging over Keewaydin Park and taking in areas now occupied by Kennewick City Hall, the East Benton County Historical Museum, and the Keewaydin branch of the Mid-Columbia Libraries.

The three-day event was held in early October.

A noted performer was nationallyknown band leader Spike Jones. He and his musicians entertained all three days.

One of the most popular events of the 1946 festival was the raffling of three new 1946 automobiles. One was a convertible and two were fourdoor sedans. At midnight ending each of the fair’s three days, winners of the cars were drawn.

Much of that specific event’s popularity stemmed from a public starved for new cars. During World War II, civilian car production was put on hold as manufacturers geared up for production of war materials.

Festivities also included pageantry. The Queen of the Realm of Concordia – or fair queen – was Joan Smith of Prosser, who graduated from Prosser High School in 1947. Judges were three members of Spike Jones and His City Slickers band.

All three days of the 1946 Grape Festival featured a parade. The Thursday float parade featured 127 entries; a horse parade was held on the Friday of the festival; and a children’s pet parade followed on Saturday.

A slogan contest sponsored by the chamber of commerce produced a winner in Kennewick: “Cornucopia of the Columbia.”

Citizens were encouraged to begin wearing purple blouses, shirts and garments in mid-September.

On vacant lots between Auburn and Benton streets on the north side of Kennewick Avenue, a stage was uGRAPE FESTIVALS, Page 12

Pasco First Avenue Center

505 N. First Ave., Pasco 509-545-3459 pascoparksandrec.com

• Drop-in snooker: 9 a.m. Mondays-Fridays.

• Mexican train dominoes: 12:30 p.m. Mondays.

• Pinochle: 1:30 p.m. Tuesdays.

• China painting: 9 a.m. Wednesdays.

Keewaydin Community Center

500 S. Auburn St., Kennewick 509-585-4303 go2kennewick.com

• Bunco: 1-3 p.m. Fridays. Cost: $1 per day.

• Bridge: 12:30-4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cost: $1 per day.

• Mahjong: 1-4 p.m. Wednesdays. Cost: $1 per day.

• Dominoes: 12:30-2 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays. Cost: $1 per day.

• Pinochle: 12:30-4 p.m. Wednesdays. Cost: $1 per day.

• Creative palette art: 9 a.m.-noon Tuesdays. Cost: $1 per day.

• Sewing: 1-4 p.m. Tuesdays. Cost: