The Great Peace Jubilee: Seattle’s Plan to Outshine Washington City
As the capital prepares for a national celebration of peace, Seattle residents are rallying with unprecedented unanimity to host their own magnificent reception for the First Washington Regiment, promising fireworks on Puget Sound and a naval battle reenactment.
The celebration in honor of the Washington volunteers will be a magnificent affair. The citizens of Seattle have made up their minds on that point. It only remains for Mayor Humes and President Graves of the Chamber of Commerce to select the members of the committee of twenty called for in the resolution passed by the City Council, and then the preliminary preparations can be commenced.
It will take money, time and effort to get up an appropriate celebration. The committee will have a big undertaking on its hands, but will start out with the cheering certainty of success. The people are ready to give the money and to co-operate in every way with the committee to make the affair a success. Never before was there such unanimity of sentiment behind any movement for a celebration in this city.
The feeling seems to be growing that the event should be given the dignity of a state reception to the volunteers. Seattle is the metropolis of the Northwest and it is proper and fitting that the reception to the First Washington regiment should be tendered in the name of the state.
There must be no half-way preparations. Time will be required to get things in readiness. The program should include some one concluding feature of great brilliancy. Possibly a reproduction of the battle of Calumpit, with the Washington volunteers leading the charge, would make an effective spectacle. Again, it might be the best idea to have a grand night reproduction of the naval battle of Manila upon the Sound, using ships in the harbor for the opposing squadrons and fireworks instead of cannon for the pyrotechnics of battle.
The great amphitheater of hills would afford unsurpassed opportunities for the people to view the spectacle. The population of the entire state of Washington could be invited to come and enjoy the affair.
That the railroads will co-operate and will contribute liberally to the celebration fund is a foregone conclusion. So will the owners of boats plying upon Puget Sound. There will be no lack of money to make the celebration the greatest event in the history of the state of Washington.
This 1899 account captures Seattle’s fierce civic ambition during the Spanish-American War era, as the city sought to establish itself as the dominant 'metropolis of the Northwest' over its rival, Olympia. The proposed 'naval battle' on Puget Sound using fireworks mirrors modern civic spectacles like the Seafair Bumbershoot or the Space Needle light shows, where local identity is forged through grand, temporary public events that leverage the region's unique geography.
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