Festival of Fruit Celebrates Piper’s Orchard 130th Year
Pipers Homestead Orchard at Carkeek Park Celebrating 130 years!
On January 28th, 1888 Andrew W “AW” Piper, an artist, German immigrant and Seattle Pioneer, filed a claim on 40 acres of freshly logged land 8 miles north of Seattle. After the Great Seattle fire of June 6th, 1889 destroyed Piper’s Candy factory and Bakery, the family moved to their homestead and began farming. They planted fields of hay, a vegetable garden, flowers and a 1.5 acre Orchard of Pears (Winter Bartlett & Guyot) and Apples (Bietgheimer, Esopus Spitzenburg, Gravenstein, King and Wealthy). It is believed Mrs. AW Piper or Minna planted the Orchard from commercially available root stocks or perhaps grafted them herself.
Mrs. Wilheminna Hausman Piper 1900s courtesy Broadview Historical Society
In 1927 the Piper Farm, now over 100 acres, was sold to the City of Seattle for $30,000 to become Carkeek Park which opened August 24th 1929 and the Piper family moved to a new home above the Orchard. Over many years, the Great Depression and a World War the Orchard became overgrown with thistles, ivy and blackberries. In 1981 Daphne Lewis in search of an urban agriculture project sited a giant chestnut tree north of the Orchard. The chestnut tree had a girdle of ivy six inches thick when Ed Lewis and Walt Lyon began clearing it and discovered apple trees. Daphne, Ed, Walt and members of the Western Cascade Tree fruit Society began a multi year restoration effort and in 1985 Piper’s Homestead Orchard once again bore fruit and was adopted through the Seattle Parks Department.
1985 Western Cascade Tree Fruit Assoc. Pipers Homestead Orchard members Lee and Ron Schaevitz, Daphne Lewis pictured.
A row of walnut and filbert trees were added in 1991 and additional apple trees were added in 1994 to the Orchard. This year Friends of Pipers Orchard and the Seattle Parks Department are celebrating 130 years of history on September 15th 2018 at the Festival of Fruit 10AM – 2:00PM at Carkeek Park Environmental Learning Center. We are honored to have descendants of Stanley Piper attend the festival and share their family history with us. Please join us at the Environmental Learning Center 950 NW Carkeek Park Rd, Seattle, WA 9817 for Pie contests, Cider pressing and a history trail to the Orchard.
Learn more: https://pipersorchard.org/
If you’d be interested in volunteering, please send an email to pipersorchard@gmail.com
Friends of Pipers Orchard mission is to keep the Orchard alive, maintain a community meeting place, provide educational opportunities and share the history of Seattle’s oldest commercial orchard.
