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It was in the side room of the Four Corners Restaurant on Monday, Nov. 17, 1986, that the idea for a bean festival in Tracy was planted.

From that luncheon meeting attended by about a dozen people, the California Dry Bean Festival — now the Tracy Dry Bean Festival — took root in 1987 and is now in its 20th year this weekend.

Tom Woolley, a Leprino Foods Co. official who was president of the Tracy Chamber of Commerce, conducted the November 1986 meeting, but the main players were Larry Teixeira of Rhodes Bean and Supply Co-op and Bob Carruesco and Kathy Post of Stockton-based Gamut Promotions.

Larry said that the success of such commodity-based festivals as the well-established Gilroy Garlic Festival and the more recent Stockton Asparagus Festival prompted directors of the California Dry Bean Marketing Board to conclude a festival featuring beans needed to be established.

And Tracy, with its bean-growing tradition and proximity to major population centers, was the location of choice, Larry added.

He said the dry bean marketing board had agreed to put up $10,000 to get the bean festival going, and Rhodes Bean and Supply Co-op would add another $3,000 to finance planning by Gamut.

Larry, who in 1987 was general manager of Rhodes Bean and Supply Cooperative (now retired for the past two years), stressed that the bean people were quite eager to establish a bean-related festival and were confident it would be a success.

Larry said he knew about beans but didn’t have a clue about organizing a festival. That’s why he brought in Carruesco and Post (now Kate Lewis) of Stockton’s Gamut Production, based on their success in producing the first Stockton Asparagus Festival in April 1986.

Carruesco told the group that the bean festival had the potential of being a great community event, one that not only would spotlight beans but also would produce income for local nonprofit organizations.

Bob, now assistant athletic director and head of sports marketing at Stanford University, said Gamut would organize regional promotion and advertising of the festival. Projected total festival costs of $87,000 would be more than offset by revenue, he said. After volunteer organizations were paid, the chamber would keep 30 percent of the net profit.

Kate, while noting that the Stockton Asparagus Festival was then at Oak Grove Regional Park north of Stockton, told the group that a location in downtown Tracy was the best site for the bean festival. The two-day event would feature entertainment, food (including “international bean cuisine”), arts and crafts, a car show and commercial booths.

“We quickly realized that downtown Tracy had the paved, tree-lined streets that were ideal for a festival,” Kate recalled this week. “And we knew there were electric power and water readily available. These were services we had to create at Oak Grove Regional Park for the asparagus festival.”

(More recently, a downtown location has been adopted by the Stockton Asparagus Festival, of which Kate is the coordinator.)

Festival plans called for ringing the festival site with portable fencing and charging admission — $3 for adults and $1.50 for senior citizens and children between the ages of 5 and 13.

Plans for the first California Dry Bean Festival were announced at a press conference in January 1987 at Rhodes Warehouse. Immediately, Dorlane Thrasher and Dick Hastie set out to round up organizations to take part, and 50 did.

The first California Dry Bean Festival was held under sunny skies Aug. 22 and 23, 1987, in downtown Tracy and drew 18,000 people — an attendance close to the projected figure of 10,000 for each of the two days. The inaugural festival came out in the black.

A Tracy tradition was off to a good start.

• Sam Matthews is publisher emeritus of the Tracy Press. To reach him, call 830-4234 or e-mail shm@tracypress.com.