So rarely does a plant perform as a good breeder for many years after its creation - this is an example of one that stands the test of time. A cross of Blagrose 'A' x Blue Order 'Via Real', Thunder Bay was made in 1960 by Beall Co. in Washington State, and was awarded an AM by the ODC in 1961 and a Silver by the CSA in 1971. Despite lots of searching and a plethora of anecdotal evidence, I can't find when or where it was awared, or who got the award given to it by the AOS. Nonetheless everybody says it has an AM/AOS, and the AOS program can be wrong sometimes, so who knows. It's still used today as a parent pretty commonly, having been eclipsed only recently in red breeding by Provocation and Gridlock - like things. It's been a parent some 70 times, as recently as 2009 (and I've made some crosses with it this year). Terry Root credits this and Johnbourn with contributing saturated red colors to their offspring; a brief review of Thunder Bay progeny certainly supports this. Excellent size helps: 6 cm petal width on a good blooming. This is one of my favorite plants in my collection: not only is it historic, but an important breeding plant as well.