What do cherries have to do with roofing?
Our relationship with roofing and cherries was conceived about 8 years ago. It was then that the current owners of Cherry Roofing had the opportunity to purchase a beautiful, historic piece of property on the wild and scenic John Day River as it nears its mouth on the Columbia River.
The location of this property is where the Oregon Trail pioneers and their wagon trains forded the John Day River, camped and rested before ascending out of the river canyon and continued on to The Dalles or took the Barlow Trail Cut-off to Oregon City. The wagon ruts they formed while passing through are still visible today on some portions of the property that have never been cultivated.
After the railroads were completed and the wagon trains ceased this was still the major route for travel between Pendleton and Portland and continued to be until the Columbia River Highway was completed in 1922. This was also a major route to the gold fields in Canyon City. At some periods of time there was a ferry, a bridge, a stagecoach station and a post office. One documented murder took place here and other reported murders. There are documented burials of pioneers and doubtless numerous undocumented burials. There is a stone fence and wall that was reportedly built by Native American labor and is over 125 years old. Water rights for irrigating from the river date to 1863.
Besides the history, hills, rocks and rattlesnakes, this property includes some irrigated farmland along the river on which a portion of it grows an orchard of about 1,200 young cherry trees that were planted by the previous farmer.
When the cherry trees began to produce fruit, it was discovered that the cherries produced at this location were the sweetest, juiciest and tastiest morsels ever eaten. It is unknown whether it is the micro-climate that exists here, the fertile volcanic soil or the ghosts of all those pioneers that died along the trail that are responsible for producing such sweet extraordinary cherries. More than likely, it is a combination of all of these along with a lot of hard work and attention to detail that result in these delectable morsels.
Those cherries provided the inspiration for the idea of creating a roofing company whose products and services would produce customer satisfaction that could equate with the pleasure experienced of enjoying a biting into the sweetest, juiciest, tastiest cherry. From those thoughts Cherry Roofing was conceived and established with the ideals of not just being another roofing company but to be the “cherry on top” of any roofing company in the Pacific Northwest! If you love cherries – you’ll love us!