Tiny's Fruit & Cider Stand in Cashmere Washington

You are looking at an old postcard of Tiny's Fruit Stand in Cashmere, Washington.

Richard Graves was "Tiny." Tiny was 6 foot 3 and weighed 440 pounds. Due to Tiny's heft and the Eastern Washington heat, Tiny's office was in a walk-in cooler. In winter Tiny would plow snow wearing no coat, just his trademark Hawaiian shirt.

Tiny was born in 1930, died in 1971, 41 years old, of either a heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage.

Tiny's Fruit Stand, with a focus on apple cider, opened in 1953. Tiny's Fruit Stand quickly became a Washington iconic location. Thanks in part to the fact that Tiny was a marketing genius, known as "The Cider King." Tiny had thousands of "Tiny's Cashmere Washington" signs posted all over Washington and beyond.

I remember seeing Tiny's signs all over the west on family vacation trips.

Tiny also put bumper stickers on the cars in his parking lot. You also saw those all over the west. I wonder if the Sea Lion Caves in Oregon still does the bumper sticker thing?

Tiny sold millions of apples, somehow managing to do so even though his marketing image used a picture of an apple with a worm in it. A cute worm wearing a black derby. Tiny drove a big Cadillac with a big apple on it. I don't know if that apple had the worm. I suspect it did.

Just a sec, is that Tiny's Cadillac he is standing in front of in the Tiny picture? It appears the big apple, on the car, does have the trademark worm.

I remember stopping at Tiny's many times as a kid. I do not have any memory of actually getting to see Tiny. I do remember the free cider samples. I also remember stopping at Tiny's with my little sister Jackie, just a baby. Tiny's filled up her baby bottle with apple cider. That was her free sample.

After Tiny died, friends continued to operate his fruit and cider stand. Then in 1972 Tiny's burned down. I remember this as being shocking at the time. Even more so the next time I was driving past Cashmere to see Tiny's gone, with blackened ruins remaining.

Tiny's was rebuilt and reopened in April of 1974. But, it was not the same thing. I remember the "new" Tiny's as being a metal shed building. Tiny's closed for good in December of 1981. The loss of a Pacific Northwest Washington icon.

Cashmere survives just fine, despite the loss of Tiny's, what with Aplets & Cotlets being even more well known than Tiny's.

I take it as a sort of tribute to Tiny that on the bridges across the Wenatchee River, that one crosses to enter Cashmere, there are boxes of apples, in artwork form. I have never looked close enough to see if any of the apples have a worm. With a black derby.

Cashmere & The Liberated Armenian Aplets & Cotlets Inventors

Today is the 4th of July. So, I am going to tell you a story about a couple of guys who came to America, seeking liberty and refuge from the danger in their homeland.

There is a town in Eastern Washington called Cashmere. Cashmere is on Highway 2 between Leavenworth and Wenatchee.

After Leavenworth successfully turned itself into a Bavarian Village theme town, Cashmere thought it might replicate that success with a theme of its own. By giving its main street an American Colonial period look. This did not have the same success as Leavenworth's theme.

Cashmere is better known for something else, besides its "theme." Cashmere is where Aplets & Cotlets are made.

Early in the 1900s two young Armenians were wise to escape Turkey and the growing nationalism which was making life increasingly difficult for the Armenian minority. Armen Tertsagian and Mark Balaban decided to start a business together in Seattle. First a restaurant, then a yogurt factory. Both failed.

In 1915 the pair took a trip to Eastern Washington. They'd grown not all that fond of the damp climate of Western Washington. When they saw Cashmere it reminded them of their homeland.

Armen and Mark made the move to Cashmere and bought an apple farm. And named it Liberty Orchards in honor of their newfound freedom.

Then they started Northwest Evaporating, an apple dehydrating method that prolonged the life of apples and helped with the food supply in World War 1. Next they started up a cannery, named it Wenatchee Valley Foods, making a very popular apple jam they called Applum.

Next up Armen and Mark started the enterprise which was to make Cashmere a well known town. There was this well-liked Middle Eastern confection called Rahat Locum, which means Turkish Delight. Turkish Delight was made from jelled apples or apricots, mixed with walnuts.

Armen and Mark made an Americanized version of Rahat Locum. And called their confection Aplets & Cotlets. Starting off in 1918 with sales locally and at their small fruit stand, Armen and Mark's Aplets & Cotlets are now produced in a large factory with a wide variety of fruit confections shipped all over the world.

Thousands come to Cashmere annually to tour the Aplets & Cotlets Factory.

Armen died in 1952, followed by Mark in 1956. By the late 1940s the pair had been joined in Cashmere by Armenan relatives. Greg Taylor, Armen Tertsagian's grandson, has been the president of the Aplet Cotlet Company for over 30 years.

I am not a big dessert fan. But, I have always liked Aplets & Cotlets.