Come celebrate the delicious, nutritious – and very fun to say – Walla Walla sweet onion at the annual festival on July 14-15. Try your hand at onion bowling. Sink your teeth into a caramel-covered onion. Vote on your favorite onion soup, or help the judges decide which onion salsa takes the prize. And, on Saturday evening, dance the night away in the town streets to the tunes of three great bands.
The name Walla Walla derives from the Indian language and means “many waters.” The fertile region was home to Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes, and the Nez Perce Indian trail ran through what is now the center of town. In the early 1800s fur traders settled the area and, with the discovery of gold in the 1860s, the town sprouted quickly. The sweet onion arrived here in the late 1800s, brought by a French soldier who discovered the sweet tasting root vegetable on the island of Corsica. Since then, the local farmers have carefully cultivated this big, round, sweet onion, a beloved ingredient in regional Northwest cuisine – and clearly worthy of its very own festival.
There are numerous private RV parks in the area (check out http://www.wallawalla.org/rv_parks.cfm), or you can enjoy the scenic beauty of the Umatilla Valley and Umatilla National Forest, which encompasses 30 parks, including the Lewis & Clark Trail State Park.
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