Then and Now: Vinegar Flats

In an area that was once a seasonal village of Spokane Indians along Latah Creek, a neighborhood was platted as Stafford’s Addition in 1888. But it became better known as Vinegar Flats because of the tangy aroma from a vinegar production plant that opened in 1889.

Brothers Robert and Walter Keller, along with their brother-in-law Frank J. Lorenz, formed Spokane Vinegar Works in a former brewery built by J.G.F. Heiber before he moved to downtown.

The company, later called Keller-Lorenz Vinegar Company, made cider and vinegar sold to stores in bottles or to wholesalers in barrels.

The company grew rapidly and in 1912 the company used 15,000 tons of apples from the Moran Prairie and Spokane Valley areas to make 225,000 gallons of cider and 5,000 barrels of vinegar.

Two primary products were pickling vinegar, made from barley malt and molasses, and apple vinegar, which starts as cider.

Pickling vinegar starts with brewery malt and molasses and yeast manufactured in local breweries.

The plant size was doubled in 1912, adding 280,000 gallons to their already impressive storage capacity. A Spokane Chronicle story said the company “now has the largest vinegar storage capacity of any plant in the United States.”

Eight men worked full time in the plant, with up to 14 added seasonally when there were apples being delivered.

In 1923, the company was selling two-thirds of their output in the Inland Empire region with some shipped to brokers in Billings and Great Falls. Those dealers shipped products even farther east.

In 1926, the company estimated its production at 300,000 gallons of vinegar and cider.

Robert Keller died at 60 in 1924. Dr. W.M. Falkenreck became president in 1926.

In 1927, 10 cider vinegar and cider factories merged into Western Cider Vinegar Inc., a move organized by J.W. Gilmore of Moscow, Idaho. Falkenreck was part of the new company.

Besides Spokane, those processing plants were in Walla Walla, Wenatchee, Olympia, and Yakima, as well as Hood River, Salem and Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. After the merger, the company began liquidating the offices in Spokane, though production, made possible with the region’s cheap apple crop, continued for many years.

The plant ended production in the late 1950s, and the plant was torn down in 1966.