The Sunshine in the Bottle: Kennewick's Grape Juice Wins the World
A homegrown experiment on Second Street becomes a gold-medal winner at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, while Kennewick cherries earn praise in Philadelphia.
The story, cleaned up
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GETTING ON THE MAP
Within the month, Kennewick's cherries have been pronounced the finest ever received in Philadelphia, and Church's Grape Juice has been awarded the gold medal over all competitors at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. In other words, Kennewick is surely and steadily getting on the map and building a reputation as the home of the finest fruits in the world.
For the Church Mfg. Company, the victory is indeed a significant one. Two summers ago Mr. Church was experimenting with grape juice on his kitchen stove at his home on Second Street. Today he is recognized as the manufacturer of the finest grape juice in the world. It is a big achievement and one of which not only Mr. Church and his business associates but the community, and the whole Northwest, should feel proud. Two things brought the medal—the superiority of the Columbia River Valley grape and the enterprise and zeal of Mr. Church. It required nerve to enter the trade arena and stand against the great manufacturers of the East whose products were known in every household in the country and whose financial resources read in millions. Mr. Church won because he knew he had placed under the label of his product an ingredient which could not be matched by any eastern manufacturer, no matter how great nor how experienced. That ingredient is the sunshine of the Columbia River Valley.
“That ingredient is the sunshine of the Columbia River Valley.”
Church's gold medal was an early example of the Columbia Valley selling itself as a premium agricultural brand, a strategy that still shapes Washington's wine, juice, and fruit industries. The kitchen-stove origin story also shows how a local experiment can become civic identity—and a booster's best advertisement.
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