In the know on the Grape Festival

Here is a trivia quiz on the city’s annual Grape Festival and Harvest Fair. Test your knowledge (answers at end).

1. In what year did Lodians celebrate the first grape harvest fair?

2. Where in the city was the festival held?

3. What is the estimate to how many people attended that first Lodi celebration?

4. How did most people travel to Lodi for the celebration?

5. What lasting tribute to that first festival still stands?

6. What was this predecessor to the current Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair named?

7. Why was the original event canceled by only one year?

8. When did Lodi re-establish the celebration which became the modern Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

9. Why was the festival resurrected after a nearly three decade interval?

10. What was the name of the group that spearheaded the revival of the festival?

11. How many people were estimated to have attended the first modern Grape Festival?

12. What was the reason that so many people turned out at the first modern Grape Festival?

13. How many people attended the 2003 Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

14. Who was Clarence Jackson for whom Clarence Jackson Hall at the Grape Festival Grounds is named after?

15. Who were the “Horribles?”

16. In what year was the Grape Pavilion built?

17. What are the dimensions of the mural on the west interior wall of the Grape Pavilion?

18. Who painted that mural?

19. Who painted mural which occupies the interior wall at the east end of the Grape Pavilion?

20. What was truly the most “explosive” moment in Grape Festival history?

21. What role did Hollywood play in the most illuminating of all Grape Festival events?

22. Who was the first “official” manager of the Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

23. Who was the “queen” of the 1907 festival?

24. What was her official title?

25. In 1934, who was selected queen for the first Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

26. Who crowned her?

27. How was she selected and how many votes did the future queen receive?

28. Who were the other members of that first royal court?

29. Since 1980, there haven’t been any more Grape Festival and Harvest Fair royal courts — why?

30. In 1980, the last Grape Festival queen was selected, who was she?

31. Who were the other members of this last royal court?

32. After nearly a quarter of a century absence, is there any chance the traditional of selecting a royal court may return?

33. Who was the grand marshal of the first Grape Festival Grand Parade?

34. In what year was it held?

35. On what day of the week was the parade held and where in the city?

36. When the tradition of the Grape Festival Grand Parade end and why?

37. Who was grand marshal of the last Grape Festival Grand Parade?

38. Is there any other parade conducted during the same time period the Grape Festival is taking place?

39. What new event will make its debut at this year’s Grape Festival and Harvest Fair.

40. What makes the Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair different from the other 82 fairs held yearly throughout California?

41. OK, then just where is the San Joaquin County Fair located?

42. Who was dubbed as “queen mother” of the Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair.

43. What is the name of the company that yearly provides the carnival rides for the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

44. How long does an adult stomper stomp in the annual “Grape Stomp” event at the festival?

45. Do the stompers get to plant their feet in red or white grapes?

46. In what year did Lawrence Welk headline the entertainment at the Grape Festival?

47. The Grape Festival was originally a three day celebration, so when was it extended to four days?

48. In its 70 years history, what were the only years in which the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair not held.

49. What type of grapes dominated the Lodi area at the time of the 1907 festival as well as the first decades of the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

50. What is the purpose behind the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair?

1. 1907

2. At the Southern Pacific Railroad Park along Sacramento Street near the Lodi Arch, the same location would be used beginning in 1934 by the Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair until the Grape Festival Grounds were built.

3. The precise number remains unknown, but some estimates put the crowd in the tens of thousands.

4. Most people traveled to the event via railroad passenger trains from as far away as San Francisco and beyond.

5. The Lodi Arch at Pine and Sacramento streets.

6. The Tokay Carnival

7. Despite large and enthusiastic crowds the Tokay Carnival took an extraordinary amount of time from the cadre of volunteers to stage and also finished in the red.

8. 1934.

9. It was established both as a celebration for an excellent harvest and the end to labor troubles among growers and pickers in the vineyards.

10. The Mustachio Club which was formed by Police Chief Clarence S. Jackson in the spring of 1934 in response to a grape pickers strike in 1933 that saw considerable violence in local vineyards, with at least one person being killed. The members of the Mustachio Club were special deputies who grew mustaches so they could be readily identified. When plans for the new festival were kicked off Mustachio Club were its leaders.

11. According to News-Sentinel archives, some 100,000 folks were on hand and it was that number which convinced the members of the sponsoring Mustachio Club to make the festival an yearly event.

12. The reason for such a huge crowd — five times the city’s population at the time — arriving in livable, lovable Lodi was that festival officials had worked with the public relations office of the Southern Pacific Railroad and got the line to feature an article and photographs about the upcoming festival in the menus in the dining cars of the system’s trains that ran through the Western states.

13. 87,541.

14. Clarence Stonewall Jackson was Lodi’s chief of police in the 1930s and the man most responsible for launching the Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair in 1934 and eventually became its first full-time manager.

15. The Horribles were a group, mostly Mustachio Club members, who dressed up in wild and grotesque costumes and parade through the streets of Downtown Lodi.

16. 1949.

17. The mural on the west interior wall of the Grape Pavilion measures 120-feet long by 16-feet high.

18. John Garth, a muralist from San Francisco, was hired to the painting and was paid $5,000 for his work.

19. In January 2002, Lodi artist Tony Segale painted the mural “America the Beautiful” inside the Grape Pavilion as a patriotic tribute following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In April 2001, Segale had done the colorful mural above the east side entrance to the building.

20. No doubt about it — the most “explosive” moment in Grape Festival history took place in 1937 when Police Chief Clarence S. Jackson, head of the Mustachio Club which staged the festival, recreated the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii at Lodi Lake.

21. Chief Jackson got Hollywood set designers Leon DeVoto and L.D. Durman to come to Lodi to create replicas of both the city of Pompeii and the cause of its destruction — Mount Vesuvius. A total of 10 floats were also constructed to depict different scenes of the ancient calamity. When all the floats had been launched onto the lake, the fireworks erupted just like — well, just like a volcano.

22. There couldn’t have been anyone else but Police Chief Clarence S. Jackson.

23. Bertha DeAlmado was crowned queen of the 1907 Tokay Carnival. She later moved to San Francisco where she became a successful author.

24. At the 1907 Tokay Carnival, Bertha DeAlmado’s official title was Queen Zinfandel.

25. Marie Graffigna Bettencourt was selected a queen to rule over the first Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair in 1934.

26. Marie Graffigna Bettencourt was crowned queen of the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair by California Gov. Frank Merriman before a crowd of 8,000 at the Lodi Athletic Field.

27. Her subjects voted Marie Graffigna Bettencourt queen of the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair by the still unconfirmed, but nevertheless astounding, total of 19,450,500 votes based upon vote coupons passed out by the Lodi Business Men’s Association to customers who brought at least 50 cents worth of merchandise.

28. Besides Marie Graffigna Bettencourt, the other members of the 1934 Royal Court — selected as top runner ups in the “voting” — were Kathryn Graham, Betty Brinson, Peggi Cellini, Laura Ortiz and Rose Scaletta.

29. Grape Festival officials at the time felt the interest in the queen contest was falling off as possible contestants became more interested in school activities, working, etc. and became more and more reluctant to commit the necessary time to meet the needs of the crowded calendar of events which the queen had to handle on behalf of the Grape Festival during the year.

30. In 1980, Angela Parises Brusa was crowned as the last queen of the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair — thus far.

31. Joining Queen Angela Parises Brusa in wearing crowns as members of the festival’s last royal court were: Lisa Lieder, Tracy Reiswig, Carmen Rice and DeLaura Wakai.

32. There are no officials plans on the part of Grape Festival and Harvest Fair officials to bring back the queen contest. However, there still exists a hardy and determined band of monarchists who keep bringing the matter back up for consideration.

33. Famed comedian and screen actor Joe E. Brown.

34. 1937

35. The parade was held on Sunday and the route led through the streets of Downtown Lodi.

36. Declining attendance both in the numbers of participants and spectators led to a decision to cancel the parade following the 2002 event.

37. Lodi winegrape grower and winery owner Don Phillips and his wife Jean was the parade’s last grand marshals in 2002.

38. The annual Kiddie Parade which held the Saturday morning during the run of the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair.

39. There will be a 5K run which will begin and end Sunday morning, Sept., 19, at the Grape Festival Grounds with the course winding through the streets in Lodi’s downtown area.

40. The festival has no livestock. While the history is a bit blurred, it may have come about through a deal struck with officials of the San Joaquin Fair to let that event include a livestock show.

41. Where is the San Joaquin County Fair located? Well, it’s right here in Lodi. In San Joaquin County, the Grape festival and Harvest Fair is the county fair due to a declaration by the Board of Supervisors in 1941. The San Joaquin Fair is an agricultural district fair.

42. Nadine Aberle.

43. Butler Amusements.

44. 90 seconds.

45. Contestants in the annual event stomp red grapes — it’s easier for the judges to keep track of the amount of juice being stomped.

46. 1948.

47. The Grape Festival and Harvest Fair was expanded to its present four-day format in 1976.

48. Because of World War II, the Grape Festival and Harvest Fair was not held from 1942-1945.

49. Tokay Flame grapes.

50. To celebrate and promote the region’s primary agricultural product.

1-5: So, you took the wrong off-ramp off the freeway?

6-10: This is your first time in Lodi, isn’t it?

11-15: Welcome to livable, lovable Lodi.

16-20: Time to listen once again that CD of the Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Greatest Hits.

21-25: OK, confess — you’re really from Stockton, aren’t you?

26-30: You deserve a glass of great Lodi wine.

31-35: Bet you even know why the rump of the golden bear atop the Lodi Arch is pointed the way it is. (It has something to do with the politicians in Sacramento, if you must know.)

36-40: Bet you can give visitors the schedules for daily stops of the Amtrak trains at the Lodi Station.

41-45: You can even boast about Lodi being the place where A&W Root Beer and the California Wine Cooler were invented. (It’s true!)

45-50: Tell local historians Ralph Lea and Christi Kennedy to move over for they have some good company.

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