The Ole Mettler Pavilion on the grounds of the Lodi Grape Festival during last weekend’s 2024 Lodi Grape Festival, festooned by a dramatic mural depicting the labors of the Lodi grape growing industry.
In 1934 Lodi was in the mood to celebrate. Naturally, local farmers and city organizers felt that it should also be a celebration publicizing the region’s number one commodity: Grapes.
Not that there was much else to celebrate. The entire country was still in the throes of the Great Depression, affecting Lodi as much as any community. The year before (in 1933) Lodi farmers fought tooth and nail against union organizers, threatening to disrupt vineyard operations. It did not end well… for the strikers and organizers (see our 2023 post, History of Lodi labor).
Fully mature Lodi grapevines (most likely Flame Tokay) owned by an American-Japanese family photographed in 1944 by the famous photographer Dorothea Lange for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s War Relocation Authority.
Also at that time, wine grape prices were at a low. Prohibition, which was finally repealed in December of 1933, had ushered in about a decade of prosperity for Lodi growers, who had significantly increased their acreage in order to meet the steady demand of the grape packing industry, which supplied fruit to home winemakers from coast to coast (to learn more about this industry, see our previous post One of Lodi oldest heritage vineyards is picked and packed for home winemakers).
Mid-1930s Lodi Grape Festival publicity
