A Monitor, a Greased Pig, and a City on Fire for the Fourth
Seattle's 1895 Fourth of July committee promised a naval sham battle, fireworks over the water, yacht and canoe races, and two days of frontier sports.
The Fourth of July celebration committee held an enthusiastic meeting in the Chamber of Commerce last night. Percy W. Rochester and A. M. Evans were added to the committee, and the various subcommittees made reports showing that matters were progressing most favorably for the greatest event of the kind ever held on the Sound. Word was received that excursionists would be up from Vancouver, B.C., accompanied by the Battery band.
The committee on decorations was authorized to go ahead with the arrangements for the band stands and the street decorations. The committee on programmes was authorized to print the official programmes in sufficient numbers to supply all visitors and without advertisements. This is not to interfere with anyone desiring to print programmes containing advertisements.
The committee on fireworks reported that arrangements have been completed for a grand pyrotechnical display that will throw into the shade anything heretofore given. There will be few set pieces, as almost all will be aerial and will be distributed among the various craft and discharged from the water, so that the whole city will have the best possible chance to see the effects. The vessels taking part in the naval parade will be arranged in three lines, and profusely decorated with Japanese lanterns. A chart of the harbor is being prepared and the movements of the lines of boats marked out thereon, showing the evolutions the squadrons will go through with. There will be a naval sham battle consisting of a fierce attack upon a monitor now building for the purpose, which will be smothered in flames and blown to atoms by the explosion of her powder magazine.
Besides this there will be a grand yacht race of the International Yacht Association in which craft from all along the Sound and the straits will compete; a fisherman's boat race; a yawl race; an Indian canoe race, and a fine boat drill. The following sports will take place on Pioneer Place: a tug-of-war; climbing the greased pole; catching the greased pig; a sack race, a three-legged race, and a pie-eating contest.
On the 5th there will be the following events on Lake Washington: single scull race; double scull race; handicap race; walking the greased pole; log rolling contest; a swimming race, and a canoe race.
“There will be a naval sham battle consisting of a fierce attack upon a monitor now building for the purpose, which will be smothered in flames and blown to atoms by the explosion of her powder magazine.”
Seattle's 1895 Fourth was designed as a booster spectacle—fireworks over the water, a fake naval battle, and contests on Pioneer Place—to draw visitors and prove the young city's arrival. The impulse to stage a signature civic event by the water still defines Seattle summers, from Seafair to the fireworks at Gas Works.
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