Gold Medals and a Pitch for Stevens County Orchards
At Seattle's Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Stevens County took top honors for grains and fruit—and its commissioner came home claiming local apples could beat Wenatchee and Yakima.
G. D. Ide, Stevens county A.-Y.-P. E. commissioner, reports the following awards for this county: Gold medal on grains and grasses. Gold medal on best fruit display. (Other counties please take notice.) Silver medal on collective exhibits of marble, ores and relief map. Silver medal on Clayton pottery. Silver medal on Crystal Marble Co. exhibits. Bronze medal on Chewelah Marble Co. exhibits. Silver medal on sugar beets, F. C. Fedder. Bronze medal on mounted birds, L. Loew. Gold medal on Gold Coin potatoes, Fred S. Ide. Silver medal on plums, F. B. Goetter. Mr. Ide reports that Stevens county's exhibits received unusual attention from visitors, and believes that the results to this section cannot be overestimated. There was a great demand for maps of the county, and the only ones in evidence were those furnished by Mr. Ide personally. The work of advertising this county has been well done so far. It should be continued. It is now known that this county can raise better winter apples than the Wenatchee or Yakima sections, and if this knowledge can only be brought to the attention of investors, Stevens county fruit lands will not long remain at their present low prices.—Colville Examiner.
“Stevens county fruit lands will not long remain at their present low prices.”
Boosterism was the region’s economic engine: win a medal, print the claim, and watch land prices rise. The same playbook—branding a place as the next great orchard country—still shapes rural real-estate promotion and civic identity across Washington.
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