Maple Valley has historically been more of a name than a specific place. In fact, the original settlement where railroad tracts once crossed the Cedar River is not even part of current city limits. But that’s where the first community parade took place as seen in this 1961 photo of Queen Darlene Jones in a cart driven by Lonnie Tingvall Sr. The parade began at what was then Tahoma Junior High (located 1,000 feet east of Good Earth Works) and followed S.E. 216th Way to the Maple Valley Highway. It traveled past a reviewing stand opposite the Serve-U market, a former grocery store closed for several years, and finished at the Maple Valley Community Club, now the Food Bank. That first event was held on May 6th with a theme, “Back Across the Years” to honor early settlers and their descendants, including Ralph Brown, Laura Kress, Estelle Maxwell, Ollie Lee, William Peacock, Frank Perry, Rosetta Perry Gibbon, and Chester Gibbon, each presented an award.
This parade was the beginnings of a tradition now known as Maple Valley Days. It derived from several older traditions. Maple Valley’s first community organization arose when a group of citizens fixed up a chicken coop where a telephone facility building now stands at the intersection of Maxwell Road and S.E. 216th. Called the Unemployed League, they held dances charging 15-cent admission until the chicken coop burned down. With land gifted from W.D. Gibbon and hardware from ‘Papa’ Joe Mezzavilla, a new community building was completed in 1937, now home to the Maple Valley Food Bank. The Cedar River boat races were another branch of community engagement. They began in the early 1940s as an endurance race and in 1962, boats launched at Landsburg and finished at the Cedar Grove Bridge. A third chapter of local heritage grew when citizens gathered at Gaffney’s Lake Wilderness Lodge in 1950 to raise funds for the area’s first fire engine. From those early beginnings, Maple Valley Days has grown, changed, and morphed into the tradition of today, which is significantly curtailed again this year. Over the next two weeks, more about the seminal 1961 event whose highlight was the Queen’s Parade. This photo comes courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah collector of historic photos
