“I think it dates almost all the way back,” Norwood told KIRO Radio. Auvil grows cherries, too, so they’re packing fruit year-round at the company facility in Orondo.Īnd as for the origins of that perfectly clever and catchy “GEE WHIZ” brand name, Ray Norwood says the idea came from founder Grady Auvil. Grady Auvil is still remembered in fruit-growing circles for being the first grower to popularize Granny Smith apples in the United States, which the company still grows, along with other varieties such as Royal Gala and Honeycrisp. Some early examples were human-powered.Īuvil Fruit isn’t exactly a household name, but the brand name the company uses for its apples – “GEE WHIZ” – is pretty well known in the Northwest. Some had side-mounted steam-powered paddle wheels, others had stern-mounted propellers.

Many river ferries were connected to cables that ran across the water to the other bank, so that the little boat wouldn’t have to fight the current. These small ferries were more like little barges that could carry just a few cars at a time, or perhaps as many as a half-dozen. Vessels used in crossings at places like Orondo were nothing like the huge double-ender ferries that carry passengers and vehicles to places such as Bremerton or Whidbey Island. Smith in the 1880s for a mythical figure related to copper mining around Lake Superior, though substantive documentation for this is hard to come by. They served travelers headed through the area, and local farmers moving crops and livestock to market or to alternate grazing areas.Ĭommon sources say that Orondo was named by community founder J.B. Orondo is upriver from the bridge at Wenatchee and downriver from the bridge at Chelan Falls, and a succession of small ferries were in operation there from the 1890s until New Year’s Eve 1959. One of the ferry crossings that almost lasted to the 1960s was at Orondo.

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