Woman With Memories of 1919 ‘Centralia Massacre’ Dies at 102

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One of the last known witnesses to the events of the Centralia Massacre died on Monday.

Dorothy Mary Smith, 102, was seven years old when the violent clash on Centralia’s streets took place, killing five people. In all, four veterans were gunned-down and one Industrial Workers of the World member was beaten, shot and hanged from a narrow bridge over the Chehalis River. 

In an earlier article featured in The Chronicle, Smith said a barking dog alerted her family to unknown men approaching the gate after the Armistice Day Parade in Centralia on Nov. 11, 1919. 

The men arrived at the home to confront her father, a mill-worker the men believed to be a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical labor union otherwise known as the Wobblies.

During the parade, veterans who recently returned from World War I and the Wobblies clashed on Tower Avenue, killing several while wounding far more.

“They thought my father was the cause of it,” Smith said in an earlier interview with The Chronicle. 

As the Centralia residents marched in the parade, IWW members waited in their labor hall, a nearby hotel and on Seminary Hill with guns, according to some accounts, which remain in dispute to this day. 

A book written by Longview reporter John McClelland, Jr. titled the “Wobbly War” recounted the events.

Some Wobblies and a marching veteran said members of the parade dashed toward the hall and began breaking down the door when the Wobblies started unloading their weapons. However, most of the Legionnaires said the Wobblies executed a well-planned ambush on the unsuspecting veterans, firing from both sides of the street. 

One Wobbly who served in the Army’s spruce logging division, Wesley Everest, ran from the hall and was chased. 

The pursuit came to an end on the banks of the Skookumchuck River where Everest fatally shot Dale Hubbard, a young veteran attempting to apprehend him. 



Everest was later captured, beaten and dragged through town with a belt around his neck to the location of the jail.

Later in the evening, the lights went out in downtown and Everest was removed from his cell, placed in a car and taken to the bridge at Mellen Street. He was hanged twice and shot several times. 

Some reports say he was castrated, although the story remains under dispute. 

His body was left hanging through the night from the span over the Chehalis River, which later came to be known as Hangman’s Bridge. No one was ever tried or arrested for Everest’s lynching. 

The names of three Legionnaires killed that evening were Warren Grimm, Arthur McElfresh and Ben Cassagranda.

Smith, who rarely spoke of the events that occurred on the day of the Centralia Massacre, died on Monday, May 4, at Logan Street Manor in Centralia. No services have been planned and arrangements are under the direction of Newell-Hoerling’s Mortuary in Centralia. 

Smith was born in Centralia in 1912 and grew up on Seminary Hill with three brothers and two sisters. 

She graduated from Centralia High School in 1930 and married her husband James Smith in 1935. 

She worked as a homemaker and never left Centralia.