North Central Washington
We’ve compiled the best of the best in North Central Washington - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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We’ve compiled the best of the best in North Central Washington - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
Surrounded by snowcapped mountain peaks 11 miles northwest of Wenatchee, Cashmere is one of Washington's oldest towns, founded by Oblate missionaries back in 1863, when the Wenatchi and their vast herds of horses still roamed free over the bunch grasslands of the region. Today Cashmere is the apple, apricot, and pear capital of the Wenatchee Valley. Aplets and Cotlets/Liberty Orchards Co., Inc. was founded by two Armenian brothers who escaped the massacres of Armenians by Turks early in the 20th century. When a marketing crisis hit the orchards in the 1920s, the brothers remembered dried-fruit confections from their homeland, re-created them, and named them aplets (made from apples) and cotlets (made from apricots). Free samples are offered during the 15-minute tour of the plant. If production isn't taking place, be sure to watch the video in the candy shop, which displays memorabilia and usually has specially priced confections.
At this lush green oasis, high atop bluffs near the confluence of the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers, visitors can commune with a blend of native rocks, ferns, mosses, pools, waterfalls, rock gardens, and conifers. Herman Ohme purchased the land in 1929 as a private family retreat and developed the gardens—now owned and managed by Chelan County—for his wife, Ruth. The couple nurtured the gardens until Herman died in 1971.
There's a museum and visitor center here, as well as picnic tables and landscaped grounds. The Gallery of the Columbia has the pilothouse of the late-19th-century Columbia River steamer Bridgeport, Native American tools and replica dwellings, and loggers' and railroad workers' tools. The Gallery of Electricity has exhibits making a case for why dams are good for us.
Displays include local Native American and pioneer artifacts, the story of the Washington apple industry, and the 1931 landing of the first-ever flight across the Pacific. Children enjoy the hands-on area and the model railway. There are also Northwest artist exhibits.
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