The Struggle to Keep the Grape Carnival Alive
Kennewick business leaders scramble to raise a $2,000 guarantee fund to ensure the city's annual Grape Carnival continues.
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The question of whether or not there is to be a fifth annual Columbia River Valley Grape Carnival was a topic for discussion at the Commercial club’s weekly luncheon Wednesday. The discussion was opened by the report of M. S. Lewis, F. R. Jeffrey, and R. C. Mounsey, who were named the week before to test the public pulse in the matter. Mr. Jeffrey, who reported for the committee, explained that the committee had gone about its work on the theory that the only accurate means of testing the public’s sentiment was to feel of its pocketbook first. For that reason, they had circulated a subscription list asking for a guarantee fund of $2,000, twenty-five per cent of which is made payable on or before September 1, and only so much of the balance to be collected as might be necessary to meet a deficit. After two afternoons' work, the committee succeeded in getting a total of $1,050 signed up. Although this amount had come rather easy, the committee predicted that the other $950 would come much more slowly. Mr. Jeffrey said the committee had found the business men practically unanimous in favor of continuing the carnival, but even so, subscriptions had come much more slowly than they had expected.
“The committee had gone about its work on the theory that the only accurate means of testing the public’s sentiment was to feel of its pocketbook first.”
Kennewick’s Grape Carnival was the centerpiece of its early 20th-century boosterism. Today, the city’s identity has shifted from fruit-growing spectacle to a mix of suburban and agricultural commerce, yet the constant local struggle to fund civic community events remains a permanent feature of town life.
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