Fourth of July Crowds in the Capital City
A bustling 1878 Independence Day celebration in Olympia draws throngs of visitors as regional sporting rivalries take center stage.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The town of Olympia was crowded to suffocation with strangers for the Fourth of July celebration, but no disturbances occurred to mar the festivities of the occasion. The Riflemen got away with the honors against the Seattle rifle club, and the foot race was decided in favor of Tate by fifteen feet; $500 are said to have been bet on Budge, his competitor, in the event.
“The town was crowded to suffocation with strangers, but no disturbances occurred to mar the festivities of the occasion.”
This 1878 account of a town 'crowded to suffocation' for a holiday event reflects the enduring tension in Pacific Northwest history between rapid population growth and the maintenance of civic order—a theme that remains a staple of Seattle's evolving urban identity.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.