<font size=-1>SHORT TRIPS:</FONT><BR> Town is proud of its heritage -- to the core

MomSeattle · DadSeattle · SPI · MySeattlePix · My account

Local

US/World

Sports

Business

A&E

Life

Comics

Photos

Opinion

Blogs

Buy Ads

Jobs

Autos

Homes

Rentals

NWsource

Getaways

Thursday, October 9, 2003

SHORT TRIPS:
Town is proud of its heritage -- to the core

By JEFF LARSEN
SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

CASHMERE -- Here's a good example of the most balanced diet of the new century: During my first day in Cashmere, for breakfast I had a cup of coffee, followed by a tasty confection called an Aplet topped off with two Cotlets (the Aplet's apricot counterpart). For lunch I ate two Golden Delicious apples along with a Bartlett pear, then chased both fruit varieties down with a strawberry soda at Doan's Valley Pharmacy's soda fountain.

PHOTO GALLERY


	Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I
A vintage passenger car is part of the railway exhibit at the Cashmere Pioneer Village and Museum.

See more photos from Jeff's trip to Cashmere.

Problem was, it felt almost normal in Cashmere to eat like that.

My weird diet most likely was triggered by apple harvest season in full swing on the thousands of acres of orchards that surround the small Central Washington town almost halfway between Wenatchee and Leavenworth off state Route 2. Cashmere also happens to be the home of Liberty Orchard's Aplets & Cotlets Candy Kitchen and Country Store. (For reference, the apple harvest usually runs into the first week of November.)

Cashmere started out in 1874 as a town called Mission, named after a log church built by a Catholic missionary. The name eventually was changed because of a postal conflict with another town in Washington already called Mission.

The town wasn't renamed after the cashmere sweater -- not directly anyway. A town judge around 1904 thought the town's natural beauty was comparable to the Vale of Kashmir in India. So, just like the name of the animal hair products imported from Kashmir had been Anglicized to Cashmere, so was the town's. Next year the town plans a big bash to celebrate its centennial.

Cashmere is more than just a left or right turn at a couple of stoplights on state Route 2 on the way to Leavenworth or Wenatchee. It's a vibrant, friendly little community, proud of its heritage and its many orchards.

Cashmere is like a small oasis in the Wenatchee valley -- a valley that used to be one of the most arid, dusty parts of the state. In the early part of the 20th century, the town was dry, hot and dusty most of the year, even with the Cascade Mountains so close. The Wenatchee River flows right through the middle of town, but without irrigation technology, the river didn't help much.

Trees -- very large trees, in fact -- give Cashmere that oasis effect. Way back in the early days, settlers needed more shade. Trees were the natural answer. So settlers planted and cultivated hundreds of trees of about 80 different species, from Silver maples to English Oaks, in various parts of town. As irrigation improved, the trees flourished.

In the mid-1970s, the town that was now blessed with hundreds of mature, giant shade trees decided to form a tree committee. Sounds a bit bureaucratic, but town leaders knew they had something special. In 1984 Cashmere was one of the first cities in the state named a "Tree City USA" by the National Arbor Day Association.

To satisfy tree freaks, the city has fashioned what it calls a Walking Arboretum -- an almost two-mile walk that starts and ends on Cottage Avenue, the shadiest of the shady streets near the heart of downtown. The loop takes about an hour. Visitors can pick up a detailed map at the Cashmere Pioneer Village and Museum.


		Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I
	Floyd Stutzman takes visitors on one of his popular hayride tours of his 30-acre farm near Monitor, just east of Cashmere.

It's easy for visitors to sense harvest time in Cashmere. Large trucks stacked high with wooden bins full to the brim with apples snake through town. Cars are parked in the orchards -- a clear sign to locals that the apple harvest is under way. All of the gears begin to turn, as the purpose and shape of the agricultural farm community comes alive. Everyone looks busy. But in one sense, it's hard to put your finger on the pulse -- that is, reach out and touch the apple business directly other than at a fruit stand.

Apple Country Tours based at the Cashmere Pioneer Village and Museum tries to remedy that. Besides its neat little gift shop, the company provides a way for visitors to get close to the apple harvest. The guided, educational tours are tailored not only to give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the harvesting and packing of the famous fruit but the opportunity to mingle with the trees, pickers and farmers who make it all happen. Call first to see what tours are available.

Event planner Marcia Green took me along on one of her popular hayride tours of the Floyd Stutzman 30-acre farm near Monitor, just east of Cashmere. Besides the farm itself, she told me I just had to see Stutzman's pumpkin cannon. Hmmmmm. I asked her if a pumpkin cannon is like a peashooter, only bigger. Kind of like that, she said with a smirk on her face.

Five of Stutzman's large (but friendly) dogs greeted us in typical farm fashion, wiggling and rolling over in the wet grass with their tongues hanging out. The fifth-generation farm features a U-pick herb garden, pumpkin patch, apple orchard and a small retail fruit stand.

As an added attraction, Stutzman loves to fire up the 1930s vintage apple sorting machine, still alive and kicking in one of the old sheds. He said his father never had the time or the heart to dismantle the thing. In fact, the original wooden apple crates are still stacked in the same place they were when Stutzman's dad shut the line down for a more technically efficient model in the 1960s.

Stutzman built the oddly shaped, monster pumpkin cannon out of old agricultural machinery parts. He had the cannon all spit-and-polished behind the barn, aimed at about a 45-degree trajectory toward a nearby hillside ready for a demonstration blast, but then its air compressor broke.


		Jeff Larsen / Special to the P-I
	Cashmere is more than a left or right turn at a couple of stoplights. Signs point to the town�s key places, including where its famous Aplets and Cotlets can be found.

Stutzman bragged that when fully charged with compressed air, the cannon could launch a pumpkin just slightly smaller than a basketball for more than a thousand feet. He actually figured out how to breed pumpkins (ammunition, if you will) to grow to the right shape and size to fit inside the barrel. It's not exactly a pumpkin machine gun. It takes the compressor 25 minutes to build up enough pressure to fire.

With 21 original structures arranged like a small 19th-century style Wenatchee Valley town, the Cashmere Pioneer Village and Museum is really a treat for all ages. The historic log structures that make up the village are arranged so visitors can peak through security screens and see slices of 19th- and early 20th-century Cashmere and Wenatchee Valley history inside. Despite the settled appearance, the mostly log structures were trucked in from other parts of the valley, then fashioned into the village.

The historical museum adjacent to the village is a 13,000-square-foot modern structure that displays a variety of Native American and early pioneer artifacts. The museum also features a railroad caboose accessible to the public. The museum is run by the Chelan County Historical Society.

The village and museum are just off state Route 2 near Apple Annie Antique Gallery, the most visible establishment at the second Cashmere light heading east. Check out the amazing selection of goods for sale by 84 vendors at Apple Annie.

Aplets and Cotlets always were a special treat around the holidays when I was a kid. The chewy powder-sugar-coated, fruit-and-nut candy has been a staple in the Northwest since the 1940s, when two Armenian immigrants in the cannery business in Cashmere concocted the recipe from a candy treat they remembered from their homeland. The rest is history.

The tidy kitchen and candy production area are open for tours daily and have become one of the most popular tourist stops in Cashmere. It should be popular -- they give out free samples (thus my breakfast). The facility also has a small gift shop.

Popular recreation opportunities in Cashmere include rafting the Wenatchee River and rock climbing at the day-use only Peshastin Pinnacles State Park. Also Devils Gulch, considered heaven by most mountain bikers, is a popular "single track" trail that winds more than 20 miles through the rugged hills above the Wenatchee Valley near Cashmere. Slightly less strenuous, the nine-hole Mt. Cashmere Golf Course winds through fruit orchards with some splendid views of the Cascade Mountains.