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a small-town celebration
More Than 50 Years in the Making
What began as a simple pancake breakfast benefiting local volunteer firefighters has grown into one of Northeast Washington’s most beloved fall traditions. Since 1974, Marcus Cider Fest has brought neighbors and visitors together to celebrate fresh-pressed cider, local history, community ingenuity, and the unmistakable spirit of Marcus, Washington.
From Pancakes to Cider Fest
It All Started With a Community Fundraiser
Marcus Cider Fest traces its roots to a pancake breakfast begun in 1974 to support the Marcus Volunteer Fire Department. What started as a simple way for neighbors to gather, share a meal, and raise money for local firefighters soon began growing into something larger.
By 1977, the fire department was sponsoring the first event officially advertised as “Cider Fest.” Held at the old Marcus school, the celebration featured fresh apple cider, arts and crafts, games, hamburgers, homemade pies, horseshoes, and an evening dance. Proceeds continued to benefit the fire department, preserving the community purpose at the heart of the event.
Over the years, Cider Fest expanded to include the parade, classic cars, vendors, live music, children’s activities, festival food, and the one-of-a-kind cider press. What began as a local fundraiser became a lasting fall tradition that continues to bring Marcus and the surrounding communities together.
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Fifty Years of Cider Fest
A Tradition Built One Year at a Time
In 2024, Marcus Cider Fest marked 50 years since the original firefighter pancake breakfast began. Over five decades, the celebration grew from a small community fundraiser into a full fall festival shaped by generations of volunteers, local organizations, vendors, families, and visitors.
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Through changing years and new additions, the festival has remained rooted in the same ideas that inspired its beginning: supporting the community, welcoming neighbors, and creating a place for people to gather. The pancake breakfast, fresh apple cider, parade, classic vehicles, music, food, and family activities have each become part of a tradition that continues to evolve while staying connected to its small-town roots.
Meet the Marcus Cyclops
The Fresh-Pressed Tradition of Cider Fest
Fresh-pressed apple cider has long been one of the traditions that gives Marcus Cider Fest its name. Each year, apples are brought from Wenatchee especially for the celebration and pressed on-site, allowing visitors to watch the process and enjoy cider made right in Marcus. What began with a traditional hand-operated press eventually became one of the festival’s most memorable attractions.
In the early years, producing cider required a large group of volunteers to turn the press by hand. According to Dennis Jenson, it once took approximately 25 people to produce 100 gallons of cider. In the mid-1990s, Jenson—an industrial electrician by trade—built a larger machine that could produce far more cider while transforming the process into something festival visitors could see and enjoy.
The homemade machine carries apples through a series of chutes, washes them in a trough, and lifts them in wire baskets around a Ferris wheel-like frame. The apples are then emptied into a grinder, pressed between wooden slats, and collected as fresh cider before being pumped toward the Cider Saloon. With its turning wheel, belts, gears, buckets, pipes, and bicycle chain, the press was intentionally designed to be more than a hidden machine where apples went in and cider came out.
Known as the Marcus Cyclops, the press became both a practical solution and a celebration of small-town ingenuity. By 2005, it was capable of producing approximately 1,200 gallons during the one-day festival. Decades after it was built, the Cyclops remains a working connection to Cider Fest’s history and the remarkable machine behind one of its most beloved traditions.
The Town That Refused to Disappear
A River Town, a Sunken Past, and a Community Rebuilt
Marcus first grew along the Columbia River as a busy transportation and supply town. Railroads carried freight and travelers through the community, miners passed north toward British Columbia, and the Marcus Immigration Station welcomed people entering the United States from Canada. Though small in size, Marcus was connected to a much wider world.
That world changed with the construction of Grand Coulee Dam. The original townsite stood in the path of the rising water, and Old Marcus was dismantled and relocated before Lake Roosevelt filled the valley. Homes and buildings that could be moved were carried to higher ground, while others were taken apart and salvaged. Streets, foundations, and the familiar shape of the old town eventually disappeared beneath the lake.
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Marcus could have become only a memory. Instead, the community rebuilt. Families, businesses, and neighbors carried the town forward, creating a new Marcus above the shoreline while preserving the identity of the place they had known. During periods of low reservoir water, remnants of Old Marcus may still emerge—a quiet reminder that the town’s earlier story remains just beneath the surface.
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Today, Marcus is a place where the past and present meet. The lake, the old townsite, the railroad history, and the traditions of Marcus Cider Fest all tell the same story: this is a community shaped by change, strengthened by resilience, and held together by people who refused to let it disappear.
Come for the festival
Discover the historic town
Be Part of the Story
Help Carry the Tradition Forward
Marcus Cider Fest has grown through the support of volunteers, vendors, local organizations, families, and visitors who return year after year. Every person who lends a hand, shares a skill, brings a booth, joins the celebration, or helps welcome others becomes part of the festival’s continuing story.
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Whether you are interested in volunteering, participating as a vendor, supporting the event, or simply attending with family and friends, your involvement helps keep this small-town tradition strong. Marcus Cider Fest is more than a single day on the calendar—it is a celebration built by the community and carried forward together.