The Washington State Apple Blossom Festival is a festival held annually in Wenatchee, Washington, self-proclaimed the "Apple Capital of the World" due to the valley's many apple orchards. The Apple Blossom Festival is a two-week festival, running the last weekend in April to the first weekend in May.
The Festival includes a Grand Parade, a youth parade, an arts and crafts festival, A carnival, A food fair, and other amusements.
The Festival is estimated to bring over 100,000 visitors to Wenatchee, a city with a population of 29,022 in the 2004 census.
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The Festival was born in 1919, the brainchild of Mrs. E. Wagner, wife of the district's first apple shipper and a native of New Zealand. She enjoyed the festivals of her childhood so much that she suggested beginning a similar festival in the Wenatchee Valley. The Ladies Musical Club produced the first festival in 1920, and the first Apple Blossom Festival Queen was Fern Prowell who reigned over the festivities, then called "Blossom Days." The one-day event in Memorial Park involved songs, speeches, Maypoles, and baseball.
The event drew large delegations of business and community leaders from throughout Seattle, Spokane, and North Central Washington, and its continuance was assured. In 1921 the Commercial Club, forerunner of the Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce, took over sponsorship of the celebration. The first parade was held that spring. From this birth, our celebration carries the distinction of being the first Apple Blossom Festival in the country, and the oldest major festival in Washington. Only Sequim Irrigation Days in Western Washington is older than our Apple Blossom Festival.
Six festivals passed before the opening of the Stevens Pass Highway, Wenatchee's first direct link to Seattle. When Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon made airborne history terminating the first non-stop, trans-pacific flight in 1931, fourteen festivals had come and gone.
Following a three-year hiatus during the outbreak of WW2, the Festival was re-named the Washington State Apple Blossom Festival to more accurately reflect the importance of the Apple Industry to North Central Washington and the State.
In 1967, Wenatchee established a sister city relationship with the Amori Apple Blossom Festival in Japan, and the nation watched history being made after the 50th Festival as the first human stepped onto the surface of the Moon.