EVENT OF THE MONTH

The Christmas Apple Festival in Willcox Is Truly a Harvest Celebration

Willcox is a town of some 3,500 people (trading area: 20,000) on Interstate 10 in southeastern Arizona. It has one more "l" than you'd normally expect, having been named for frontier Army Gen. Orlando B. Willcox, commander of the Department of Arizona from 1877-1882. During the first weekend of every December, the town celebrates the Willcox Christmas Apple Festival. Willcox does indeed grow a lot of truly scrumptious apples, but the apple harvest ends several months earlier in September and October. By now most of the apples have pretty much been sold, juiced, pressed into cider, or made into pies.

Ellen Clark, executive director of the Willcox Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture, explains that people celebrate the apple harvest now because they were too busy harvesting to do it in September or October. And they're just sort of tying it into Christmas because apples are all red and green and shiny and Christmasy-looking. "It is," confesses Ms. Clark, "just an excuse to have a party."

The party starts with a chil-dren's parade and a tree lighting. Then it continues with an arts and crafts show, a cooking-with-local-products contest, and a bazaar at the Community Center. It's quite a celebration, and, in fact, when it comes to apples, Willcox has a lot to celebrate. Twenty years ago, or thereabouts, very few apples were being grown in the Sulphur Springs Valley (of which Willcox is the hub). Grain, cotton, and cattle those were the biggies. (See Arizona Highways, October '91.) Then came the embargo on grain to the then-Soviet Union, the Carter administration's response to the invasion of Afghan-istan. The bottom fell out of the grain market. Chamber of Com-merce to the rescue, along with the University of Arizona's Co-operative Extension Service. "Try growing apples," they said to the farmers. The soil's good. There's a lot of sun and plenty of water underground. And the elevation, 4,100-plus feet, is just right to generate the kind of chill that apple trees need during winter dormancy.

The result was an apple industry spreading throughout the valley with orchards dotting the gorgeous mountain-festooned landscape. They sell just about all they can grow because they have a two-to-four-week window during which nobody else's apples not even Washington's - are coming to market. The varieties include Granny Smith, Golden and Red Delicious, and Jonathan. Also, says Doug Dunn, county director of the extension service, Willcox's apples run two to four percent higher in sugar content than any other apples in the world. The reason is all that great sunshine that spills down on Willcox and environs.

Want to pick your own apples-or, for that matter, any of the multifarious produce grown on Willcox-area farms? Just drive to one of the 27 places that call themselves "U-picks." Take a basket. And take the kids for what the locals call a "real farm experience" as thousands of city folk from Tucson and Phoenix and as far away as Yuma and Flagstaff do every year. "It's a family thing," says Julie Hunsdon, who with her husband, Corey, runs one of the U-pick farms. "We have the most wonderful families coming out here year after year." (The chamber's Ellen Clark says the valley gets no less than 95,000 U-pick visitors every summer. Agriculture, she says, is one of Cochise County's largest tourist attractions, second only to Tombstone.) Well, then, now you can un-derstand why Willcox cele-brates apples at Christmas. Apples sort of saved its skin. That's surely something worth throwing a party for.

WHEN YOU GO

This year's Willcox Christmas Apple Festival takes place December 2 and 3 with most activities at the Community Center, at the corner of Stewart Street and Austin Boulevard.

Willcox is on Interstate Route 10, 192 miles southeast of Phoenix, or 81 miles east of Tucson. Take Exit 336 off the Interstate to the town's only traffic light, then turn right and proceed one block to the Community Center.

For additional information, contact the Willcox Chamber of Commerce at 1500 N. Circle "I" Road, Willcox, AZ 85643; toll-free at 1 (800) 200-2272 or (602) 384-2272.