The Sunnyside Caravan Rolls Into White Bluffs
Sixty-five boosters arrive by car to sell the valley on community cooperation and the promise of Ford Day.
The story, cleaned up
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Sixty-five strong, including a 15-piece brass band and a male quartette of unusual ability and—oh, yes!—Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean, the Sunnyside boosters arrived in White Bluffs Wednesday noon and proceeded to make themselves at home. The caravan left Sunnyside in the morning, arriving in the forenoon at Priest Rapids, where they viewed the great power site. They had luncheon in White Bluffs and left about 2:30 in the afternoon for Hanford, where they spent a couple of hours before returning home by way of Benton City. An interesting address was made by one of the prominent members of the party in front of the drug store after luncheon, in which the speaker pictured the great things in store for this valley when the Priest Rapids power site is developed and asked for a closer cooperation between the residents here and the people of Sunnyside. Others of the party were busy putting up placards announcing the Second Annual Ford Day in Sunnyside on Wednesday, June 20th. This is Sunnyside’s big annual play day, where prizes are awarded for the best as well as the worst looking Ford, the oldest, the youngest, the highest and lowest mileage record, and so on.
“During the rest of the year the old Ford is just a jitney, but on Ford Day in Sunnyside it belongs to the select circle.”
This booster caravan captures a brief, optimistic moment of inter-city cooperation in the Columbia Basin, just before the massive upheavals caused by the Hanford Project would permanently alter the region's geography and demography. Today, the 'Ford Day' spirit persists in the small-town festival culture that binds these remaining dry-land communities together.
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