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Wenatchee, WA
Wenatchee is the county seat and most populous city of Chelan County, Washington, United States. The population within the city limits in 2010 was 31,925, and has increased to 35,508 as of 2020. Located at the center of Washington State, Wenatchee proudly showcases its bounty of natural beauty.
Wenatchee - A safe and bountiful travel destination perfect for wanderlust explorers.
Since its earliest settlement, Wenatchee has identified itself with apples. This trend continues today, with apples appearing in the names of everything from appliance and machine shops to square dance clubs, churches and the town’s semi-pro baseball team. Second graders in the Wenatchee School District study an apple unit every year. Washington State’s Apple Blossom Festival has been held in Wenatchee each spring since 1920. Images of apples are found on signs, billboards, letterhead and logos throughout the Wenatchee area as evidence that residents remain proud of this heritage. One of the first white settlers in Wenatchee, Philip Miller, planted apple trees in 1872. The Peterson orchard, started in 1884, was the first commercial planting in Wenatchee.2 With the completion of the Great Northern Railway Company’s route across Stevens Pass in 1893, apples could be now shipped by rail to Seattle. The first carload of apples from Wenatchee to Seattle was shipped in 1901, 3 and the future looked bright for growers. The apples were so well received that by 1902, the Wenatchee community began proclaiming that Wenatchee was the “Apple Capital of the World”.
The City broadened its economic base after 1940 to include hydroelectric construction and electrical metal refining. The hydroelectric power created by the Grand Coulee Dam (completed in 1942) and Rock Island Dam (1932) made it possible for new industries to develop. The Aluminum Company of American (Alcoa) plant (1952) near Malaga, the Holden Mining Company at Lake Chelan (operated as the largest copper mine in Washington state from 1938 to 1957), and the Rocky Reach Dam (constructed in two phases in 1956 and 1969) were large employers in the area.
