The "Tacoma Times" - never missing a chance to denigrate Seattle - declares that Tacoma Day events resulted in the "Greatest Crowd That Ever Invaded the City." Tacoma residents arrived via steamboat "with banners and streamers declaring 'Tacoma's Pride is Justified,' and assuring outsiders that 'They'll Like Tacoma.' ... Everybody wore a great flaming badge 'Tacoma.'" The centerpiece of the day's events was a "monster parade" during which the mayors of Tacoma and Seattle rode together in an automobile. "Another large machine was loaded with thirty handsome Tacoma young women, and made a pleasing feature of the procession."
The article doesn't mention the enormous sign erected along the waterfront in honor of Tacoma Day:
Two weeks later, on July 31st, the "Times" published an acrostic poem by Nathan Ward FitzGerald, ostensibly inspired by Tacoma Day. FitzGerald is remembered today as the first follower of the Baha'i faith to settle in the Pacific Northwest.
"There's 'no place like it,' you will find."
images courtesy of the Library of Congress - chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
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