Garden City's Raspberry Roots

Garden City's Raspberry Roots

Residents of Garden City, Utah, have been cultivating raspberries since early homesteaders planted the first canes nearly a century ago. From those roots, the town has grown into the Raspberry Shake Capital of the West.

“What makes it a great location (to grow raspberries) is that we get cool nights and nice warm days,” says resident Tammy Calder, who owns a family farm with her husband, Ned, a second-generation raspberry grower.

Situated between the mountains of the Cache National Forest and 20-mile long Bear Lake, Garden City sits midway along the western shores of the lake’s Caribbean-blue waters. Established in 1877, Mormon settlers built the town’s first cabins, and many locals can trace their roots back to those early pioneers.

Residents used to raise dairy cattle and grow hay. Now most cater to Utah’s vacationers, dishing up shakes and fries in the town’s numerous drive-ins restaurants and renting out boats and jet skis in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter.

Still, it’s raspberries that gave Garden City is nickname, the Raspberry Shake Capital of the West. Despite a blight that hit the town’s raspberry crop in recent years, residents have vigilantly continued celebrating their local fruit during the Raspberry Days Festival.

The celebration, scheduled Aug. 5-7 this year, was created by the Bear Lake Rendezvous Chamber of Commerce 21 years ago, and is a mainstay for the town’s 357 residents. “It draws a bigger crowd than Labor Day and the Fourth of July, and people plan their family reunions around it,” says Carmen Madsen, an early promoter.

Due to the blight, some raspberries had to be brought in from outside the community last year, according to Calder, who’s had a raspberry sundae stand at the festival for 12 years. “We started replanting three years ago,” she says. “It takes about three years for a new plant to mature. So we should be back in business again and have some raspberries ready for the festival.” Calder adds that raspberries—which grow on canes—ripen “for about five weeks, varying from the first week of July to the first week of August.”

During the celebration the town holds a parade, Miss Berry Princess contest, raspberry bake-off, rodeo, craft fair, pancake breakfast, dance, lighted-boat parade, musical entertainment and fireworks. Growers sell freshly picked berries from roadside stands.

“It’s been dubbed the biggest little parade in the West,” says Bryce Nielson, the town’s former mayor. “We’ve had as many as 75 entries and 15,000 to 20,000 visitors.”

Garden City resident JoAnne Anderson recalls the year she and friends dressed as a centipede. “Twelve of us wearing wigs and dark glasses poked our heads through holes in the top of the bug and weaved down the street,” she says.

The Bear Lake Monster, fashioned after a “Loch Ness-type” creature that some locals say inhabits the lake, even makes appearances at the parade. “During Utah’s bicentennial year, we named her Isabella,” resident Bess Huefner says.

The parade highlight is the Miss Berry Princess Float. All the 4- to 6-year-old girls who compete are entitled to ride on the float with the Raspberry Princess.

“In 2001, the theme was survivor,” says former competition chair Angie Haller. “The girls wore island-style attire and did the limbo to the Banana Boat song. We had a gal dressed in camouflage and one with a gorilla and bananas sewn to her sweatshirt. The mermaid won.”

The festival has evolved over the years. The original flea market has turned into a juried crafts fair that sells raspberry shakes and ice cream. A buckaroo rodeo with mutton busters (kids riding sheep) became a full-fledged rodeo.

In 1998, the town added the popular lighted boat parade. That year, nearly 60 entries—with lights strung in the shape of the Stars and Stripes, Christmas trees, and Snoopy—streamed out of the harbor.

Even the Bear Lake Monster has resurfaced. Conrad Nebeker, a summer resident, created a huge 62-foot-long, 60-seat monster raft that current owner Brian Hershey gives rides on at the lake.

“If it’s a foggy day, and it’s bouncing along with it’s big 15-foot snaky head, it looks pretty good,” Nebeker says.

Karen Karvonen is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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