What is the Jolly Green Giant Doing There??

300 feet tall, the Jolly Green Giant permanently rests on the Hillside in Dayton, WA. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have driven by the “Big Guy”, standing there in all his glory sporting that Green Tunic. I just assumed back in the day there was a cannery here in this quaint little town of 2,500 people at the foot of the Blue Mountains.

Finally curiosity got the bat of me and I had to flash back in time to check out a few old commercials. The Jolly Green Giant along with Sprout were a hit when I was a kid.

“Ho Ho Ho...Green Giant”

I couldn’t just stop there, “Why on God’s Green (oops) Earth is the Jolly Green Giant on the Hillside? I know he is a legendary figure in the canned and frozen food industry, but why here? So I hit up the interweb and that Bing thing search engine...VAROOM VAROOM to see what this Giant is doing on the hillside in Dayton Washington.

First article in the search turned out to be a good one with lots of interesting and enlightening info about this so called Jolly Green Giant. Here are just a few interesting facts I found in this article and a couple others that will be mentioned at the bottom of the post.

• For 70 years the world’s largest asparagus cannery was located in Dayton, WA
• The cannery was closed and moved to Peru in 2005. In Peru they stopped producing the Coca plant as part of the war on drugs, and started planting asparagus instead.
• With the closing of the cannery, 50 full time jobs were eliminated
• In the 70’s they would fertilize and seed the hillside in the right places so when spring came, the Jolly Green Giant could be seen
• In the 90’s it was outlined in cement blocks and made even bigger.
• Seneca was doing all the canning and since the Asparagus was no longer around they became a seed processor
• 30 million pounds of peas, garbanzo, and Wheat seeds in six months in 2017

It seems the plant and community took a big hit at the time, they were down but not out. With around a thousand migrant workers coming in to town at harvest time, this brought a lot of money to the small Mom and Pop businesses of the town Dayton. Removing that extra boost of income from such a small town can potentially have a big impact. The Seneca cannery (which was contracted by Green Giant) was a big economic force in the town of Dayton, along with the other surrounding communities. So the removal of its economic value from this community brought some fear and doubt to the people.

This resilient small town found a way to survive and fought its way back. Now with Seneca turning to seed production, there are Grain Silos scattered all over the country side. Just watch out on the highway during seed harvest, you might get ran over by a Combine/Harvester. If you’re one of those people in a hurry during this time of year...umm...good luck with that. The winding 2 lane highway leaves no gap in traffic to pass, so you are stuck. HA HA

Let’s get back to this Giant business shall we. A few citizens in the community would rather see the Giant leave town and take the past hurts with him. The Jolly Green Giant still lives Big in this Small community. So if your just East of the Town of Dayton on Highway 12, look in a Northwest direction and you will see the Jolly Green Giant himself.