Wenatchee Set World’s Apple Pie Record – 10/21/2025
Photo source: WVMCC #976-18.
Written by Chris Rader
How many apples and workers do you need to create the world’s biggest apple pie? In August 1997 the North Central Washington Museum (now Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center) led an enormous and successful community effort to find out.
Photo source: WVMCC #005-65-53. Date: Oct. 20, 1938. Wenatchee’s Super Apple Pie, the pie was ten feet in diameter and a foot deep. Left to right: unidentified man, Irma Gutzwiler Russell, Mildred Brownlow Nicholson, Dorabelle Graham, unidentified man, Virginia McWhirter Dodson, Helen Boddy Shafer, Lois Christensen, Wally Young and unidentified man.
The idea started with museum secretary Pauline Sweeney, who had just viewed some archival film footage of the baking of a one-ton-pie to promote the 1938 Apple Blossom Festival. (A photograph from that event appeared on the cover of the Spring 2007 Confluence.) With the encouragement of then-director Keith Williams, she started in February to research the best way to beat the existing record – a 30,115-pound apple pie baked by citizens in Chelsfield, England, in 1982.
Sweeney contacted a community in the American South that had created a large pecan pie and got some logistical tips.
“We knew we would have to make an oven and a special pan for this pie, and we knew we’d need to involve lots of volunteers,” Sweeney said.
Photo source: WVMCC. A crane lifted the top of the custom-built oven over the pie as volunteers pulled on cables to set it into place.
She and Williams consulted structural structural engineers to design the oven and figure out the materials and equipment that would be required. The oven, constructed in Walla Walla Point Park, was of welded 2-by-4 inch steel tubing with chicken wire, steel, drywall, and fiberglass insulation. It had vents built in and sat on stanchions that were actually highway dividers borrowed from the state Department of Transportation. The cover was lowered over the pie by a special crane.
Sweeney experimented with recipe ingredients during the early summer.
“I made a lot of pies at home that year,” she said. “I got a pan that was several inches deep, and weighed the ingredients – then did a lot of calculating for a pie that would break the record. We sure hoped to get a big crowd of volunteers to peel and cut all the apples!”
The community responded with great enthusiasm to the project. Eleven committees helped the museum plan the event, and the date of Saturday, August 16 was set for what was billed as “The Apple Capital Capital Race to Bake the World’s Largest Apple Pie.” Stock Steel, The Insulation Man, Parker Manufacturing, Alcoa Wenatchee Works, union members from the International Association of Machinists, and local contractors and truckers contributed countless hours and thousands of dollars worth of materials to fabricate the food-safe oven and pan. AmeriGas brought in staff from around the state and donated all the propane, burned in 12 special heaters, to bake the pie. Sizeable cash contributions came in from Tree Top, Cascade Auto, Mrs. Smith’s Pies and others eager to see the project succeed.
The big day began at 5 a.m. when teams of volunteer apple cutters began showing up at the park. Through pledges, the teams had raised money to be divided between the museum and not-for-profit organizations selected by each team. Dolco Packaging took first place in fundraising that day.
In all, 375 people on 36 teams peeled, cored and sliced the apples that were heaved onto a gigantic bottom crust. Dough for the crust was mixed by Top Foods and rolled out by members of the Wenatchee High School football team. Local warehouses contributed 875 boxes of Washington apples to the effort. Encouraged by cheerleaders from Eastmont High School, the football players then donned surgical shoe covers and walked across the pie to spread the crumb topping.
Photo source: WVMCC. Two members of the Wenatchee High School football team spread crumb topping on the 34’x 44′ pie.
And plenty of topping was needed, as the pie measured 44 feet by 34 feet! Ingredients were blended in the kitchen of Prospector Pies. Sweeney said the crumb mixture used:
- 3,175 lbs. flour
- 3,400 Ibs. sugar
- 427 Ibs. brown sugar
- 1,227 lbs. margarine
- 100 lbs. cinnamon
- 16 lbs salt
At 11 a.m., the crane lifted the cover onto the pie and the baking began. Computerized heat sensors that had been wired to the inside of the oven monitored the cooking process. A crowd of more than a thousand people came to the park that day to help out or watch the fun – including state Senator George Sellar, Rep. Linda Evans Parlette and Wenatchee Mavor Mayor Earl E Tilly.
Service clubs set up concession booths, dancers and singers provided entertainment, and hot air balloon rides were offered for free. The party atmosphere continued all day and into the evening, with a chicken barbecue and square dancing in the park.
The highlight of the entire event, of course, was the sampling of the finished pie. Using custom-built spades, Williams and others shoveled it onto large paper plates and distributed the pie to everybody in the park.
Photo source: WVMCC. Former museum director and event co-chair Keith Williams shovels a helping of apple pie onto the plate of a volunteer pie baker as co-chair Pauline Sweeney looks on.
After biting into the confection, Wenatchee city administrator Gary Tomsic told the crowd, “I’ve eaten a lot of fine apple pie. Without a doubt, this is the tastiest apple pie I’ve ever tasted.” Tomsic was one of the designated judges who, according to Guinness Book of World Records regulations, authenticated the project by measuring the pie and determining its weight.
“This is one tasty, big dang pie!” exclaimed the other judge, Washington Apple Commission president Jim Thomas. They proclaimed the net weight of the pie at 34,438 pounds – well well above that of the previous world record holder. Three months later, the Guinness organization made it official with a proclamation that Wenatchee had indeed made the world’s largest apple pie.
And how many workers and apples does it take to achieve that record? In Wenatchee, some 700 volunteers put in about 3,000 hours, with 140 corporate sponsors supporting the construction of the pan and oven, the baking of the pie, and the all-day celebration in Walla Walla Point Park. As for the main ingredient-it’s a good thing that Wenatchee is the apple capital of the world.
An estimated 87,500 apples were baked on August 16, 1997, in a pie that put the city on the world map.
This story was originally published in Confluence Magazine in the Summer edition of 2007. In an effort to preserve these stories, the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center will be posting these stories on the museum’s official blog.
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