Southwest Apple & Chile Fest

The Southwest Apple & Chile Fest is the annual signature event of Farmington’s Arts & Cultural District. A celebration of a bygone era when the local economy was based on produce, especially apples! San Juan County’s original historian and early leader of Farmington, Julie Gould Miller, wrote, “The first fruit trees were planted around 1880 as an experiment, but within a few years the most productive results followed. By 1891, approximately 23,000 standard varieties of fruit trees were planted, followed in 1892 by about 50,000.” While indigenous peoples in the southwestern desert had cultivated peach trees for hundreds of years, it was apples that become the primary fruit crop of San Juan County orchards. The shipping of fruit across the country was so central to the county’s economy; the local train service was dubbed the Red Apple Flyer! It was the orchards that provided jobs and income from farming, fruit picking, transport and canning.