Cedar Mill Cider Festival—a new old-fashioned tradition

The 2008 Cider Festival was a smashing success! Great fall weather greeted over 600 visitors to the JQA Young House site on Cornell Road on Sunday, October 19 from 1-4 pm. Boy Scouts from Troop 208 again ran the antique presses, turning 600 pounds of apples into hundreds of cups of delicious sweet cider. Thanks to Bales Thriftway and the Cedar Mill Bible Church for the apples.

Burnt Ends BBQ Team served up tasty sandwiches of pulled pork and beef brisket, but they misjudged the public’s appetite for grilled hot dogs and ran out by 2 pm. They promise to bring more next year! The Leedy Grange raised over $300 selling blackberry-apple crisp and ice cream, and community partners Cedar Mill Farmers’ Market, Cedar Mill Business Association, Cedar Mill Bible Church and Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District provided information to the public.

THPRD sponsored the event and brought along their popular RecMobile with activities for kids. And thanks to Polygon for once again sponsoring the publicity for the event with a banner and a large ad in the Oregonian. Ida Viper got everyone’s feet tapping with their blend of old-time music. Some folks even decided to dance in the dirt.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the Cider Festival happened in the History Tent, where a model of the JQA Young House was on display along with other materials demonstrating TPHRD’s plans for the property. Descendants of the Young family attended, some of whom had never met each other until this day. We also talked to folks from the pioneer families, Reeves and Walters, and one woman who had lived in the house as a young child during the 30’s. Members of the JQA Young fundraising committee were on hand to provide information about the house’s history and future plans.

If you missed the event this year, be sure to join us next year. Tradition tells us that the weekend in October with the “teenth” is good weather, so we’re going with that and have already set October 18, 2009 as our next date!

NEWS HOME