By Jean Cerar

Labor Day was once Issaquah’s big community celebration.

Long-time residents remember the grand parades, the kiddies’ parades, and the carnivals that took place during the event’s glory days from 1945 to 1967. In fact, Issaquah’s Labor Day parade became the biggest, most elaborate parade for a town of its size in the state of Washington.

Each year residents dreamed up decorative floats that represented the town’s civic and fraternal organizations and businesses.

The Grand Parade was always held on Labor Day Monday.

“I remember big crowds for the Labor Day parade,” Lorraine Swanson Morton said. “When I was little, five or six, my mom and aunt baked a lot of cookies and dressed my cousin Tom [Carey] and I up as the King and Queen of Hearts, and I got to hand out cookies along the parade route.”

The Children’s Parade, staged the day before the Grand Parade, also inspired great creativity. Viola Petersen recalls that she and her friend Clarice Lakey used to make “a really big deal” out of building floats for their kids.

The themes they selected included “Anna and the King of Siam,” a 1892 Druyea car, and an Italian festival, complete with a pony pulling the float.

“Oh many, we were good!” she laughed.

Reigning over the weekend festivities was the Labor Day Queen, a local teenager who won the honor by selling the most raffle tickets.

Florence Bergsma Harper, the 1955 queen, remembers that it was “just rather magical, and beautiful to be a queen.”

Issaquah organizations sponsored the candidates, and Florence, like many of the other winners, was sponsored by the Grange.

“Labor Day was something we all looked forward to,” Chuck Olson said. “The carnival would come to town and the carney people were really something. They would work all day and drink all night. They were grumpy men and everyone was really scared of them. It was a great time of the year, the end of the summer and the beginning of the school year.”

Marilyn Batura remembers furiously picking blackberries so that she would have enough spending money for the carnival.

“I usually made enough money to buy some sweets, ride the Ferris wheel and come home with a bellyache,” she said.

The first reference to a Labor Day celebration in Issaquah appeared in a September 1918 issue of the Issaquah Independent.

The event was described as having a parade with an American Flag, the Issaquah Band and decorated autos; sports on the ball field; and a dance at which the ladies of the Red Cross served lunch and supper.

The local chapters of the United Mine Workers of America and the Timber Worker’s Union organized the celebration.

The idea caught on and grew. During the 1920s Issaquah became known for its free-wheeling celebrations, especially the Fourth of July Rodeo on Memorial Field and Labor Day. Both events kept the local saloons busy and the jail full.

Things calmed down considerably during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Then the focus changed to speeches by celebrities, foot and bike races, horseshoe games and scout demonstrations.

Then came World War II and the Labor Day celebration was suspended.

In 1945 it was reinstated by energetic volunteers who found more activities to add each year. Proceeds from the event were used to support and improve [Veterans’] Memorial Field.

One of the fundraisers was a beard growing contest.

“City leaders who did not have a beard were arrested and taken to jail in the basement of the town hall. They had to pay a fine (donation) to fund the celebration. Some mug shots were taken by the press,” Eric Erickson recalled.

By the early 1960s, in addition to the parades, queens and carnival, the event also included arts and crafts shows with artists in action, dances, drill team competitions, truck rodeos, and athletic games.

Issaquah floats appeared in Seattle’s Seafair Parades to help publicize the community. It was all great fun that eventually got out of hand. Volunteer fatigue, coupled with revelry that degenerated into rowdiness, brought the demise of Issaquah’s Labor Day celebrations. The last one was held in 1967.

But Issaquah missed its fall festival.

In 1969 the Issaquah Chamber of Commerce introduced Salmon Days as a free, family-oriented celebration of the salmon returning to Issaquah Creek to spawn. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Material for this column came from “Images of America: Issaquah, Washington”, “Preserving the Stories of Issaquah”, “This Is Issaquah” and interviews from the Issaquah History Museums’ Oral History Video Project. The books are available at the museums’ gift shops. The oral histories will be accessible for research next year after they have been catalogued.