The Grape Juice Boom in Kennewick

Evidence that the fame of the Kennewick Concord and Worden grape is rapidly spreading was received this week when a communication came to the Commercial club from a manufacturing concern of San Francisco, which wants to buy four or five carloads of this year’s crop. The chances are, however, that no grapes will be shipped out of Kennewick to California this year, as the price at which the firm hopes to buy is $12 a ton, f.o.b. Kennewick. On the contrary, practically all of the Concord and Worden grapes raised in the Yakima and Columbia valleys will be manufactured into Church’s grape juice by the Twin City Ice Cold Storage company. The price which this company is paying is $20 per ton for Concord and $22 for Wordens, and they furnish the boxes. The company has just completed alterations and installation of new machinery which increases the capacity of the plant about threefold. A basement has been excavated under the plant to afford more storage capacity, an additional battery of large steam-jacket aluminum kettles has been put into place, and large consignments of bottles are arriving every week. In order to allow more room at the plant, the company has leased the Henneberry building on Front street and has filled it with hundreds of cases of Church’s Grape Juice, bottled, ready for market.