Last week’s column detailed the origins of summer festivals in Enumclaw. The Farmers’ Picnic was the first, organized from Sunday night gatherings, called Lyceums by Wabash, Fir Grove, and Osceola farmers. Those celebrations lasted until the 1940s when Naches Trail Days took center stage starting in 1949. Excessive rowdiness as detailed by Mayor John Selland spelled the end of that affair. Next, rodeos and the King County Fair rose in prominence.
The first significant rodeo took place in 1954, and by 1965 when this photo was taken, a rodeo court had been selected, consisting of Princess Delores Duchateau, Queen Eileen Holm, and Princess Susan Swanbeck, seen here with an unidentified clerk in a Western clothing store. That same year, Vicki Dyer, a freshman at U.W. from Enumclaw competed to become Washington State Dairy Princess. In the months building up to the big event on August 14th & 15th, the Rodeo Court was feted by Enumclaw businesses. Jim Fugate, then sales manager for Collins Motors presented Queen Eileen with a yellow Galaxie 500 convertible courtesy of the auto dealership. That summer, the Courier-Herald ran several news stories promoting the competition. Enumclaw residents were urged to wear at least three western-style garments, including a rodeo button
Rodeo weekend featured a parade with nearly 100 units, organized on the spacious grounds of the Junior High, now Dwight Garrett Park. It then traveled down Porter Street to Washington Avenue and Cole Street all the way west to Roosevelt Ave. The rodeo was held at the Jaycee Arena on the Naches Trail Riders rodeo grounds located one mile west of town at the intersection of 239th Ave. S.E. and S.E. 440th Street, the current home of Country Farm & Feed. The annual Rodeo dance was held at the Neuwaukum Grange Hall on Saturday night.
And, the following weekend, Aug. 20-22, 1965, the sleepy little livestock show known as the King County Fair reinvented itself at a new half-million-dollar facility including three former buildings from the Seattle World’s Fair. But more about that next week. This photo # EPL0016-553 comes courtesy of Schlotfeldt-Pioneer Special Collection / Courier-Herald.
