Innovation was thriving in Seattle in the 1980s. Microsoft was leading the boom in home computing, Boeing was manufacturing its 1,000th 737 aircraft. Pam Montgomery was inspired by that spirit and had a wonderfully successful real estate business. But with her newborn daughter Vivian in tow and twin girls soon to come, Pam was drawn to the idea of raising her family in a small town. When an 8,000-tree cherry orchard came up for sale in Yakima Valley, the family purchased it and moved to Eastern Washington.

But that spirit of innovation still inspired Pam. She soon discovered that many cherries went unpicked after the harvest, and one day, she ate a few of the shriveled cherries and they were chewy, naturally sweet, and delicious. She soon fabricated a dryer from window screens and in 1988, Chukar opened a cherry drying facility and store front in the small town of Prosser, Washington.