The Newspaper That Sent Thousands of Schoolchildren to the Fair

On P.-I. Day at the Interstate Fair in Tacoma, the Post-Intelligencer's steamers carried children free and returned them home safely, obtained their free admission to the fairgrounds, and gave special rates to the adults who accompanied them. The paper set aside $155 for the best essays or stories by schoolchildren of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Ballard, Everett, Snohomish, Whatcom, Port Townsend and Port Angeles. The children described the crush at Yesler wharf, the steamers City of Seattle and State of Washington, the Mirror Maze, the Spirit Bridge, the Cyclorama of Lookout Mountain, the Ferris wheel, the Streets of Cairo, a nine-foot giant, and a pie-eating contest. “The crowd at the Interstate fair grounds was the largest ever assembled in Tacoma, in Washington or in the Pacific Northwest,” the paper boasted. One essayist called Tacoma “a quiet little hamlet on the southern coast of Puget sound, bounded on the east by Mount Rainier.” Another wrote: “I saw a big wheel that people got in to ride. I saw two dolls in a crib. Papa put me up on the mail wagon.”