Highlighting Lewis County: Efforts Launched to Mark Centennial of Armistice Day Tragedy

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A year from now, volunteers throughout the region will be scrambling to finish preparations for events marking a significant centennial — the Centralia Armistice Day Tragedy.

It’s a commemoration of the Nov. 11, 1919, Armistice Day Parade sometimes referred to as a massacre, a riot or a conspiracy. It was without doubt a tragedy that left bloodstains from dying soldiers on Centralia’s streets, a man lynched from a local bridge, and a community with a tarnished reputation shrouded in shame and secrecy.

Tourists to the Twin Cities can learn more about the historic event aboard a 21-seat bus tour launched by Dale Pullin, former owner of Thorbeckes FitLife Center and manager of the Northwest Sports Hub. He financed a video to run on a 40-inch television screen showing historic and present-day photos of the city as a narrator explains what happened at each of the 18 stops nearly a century ago.

The Centralia Armistice Day Tragedy Centennial Committee Facebook page has drawn 140 members interested in marking the centennial. Although even today, 100 years after that fateful day, it seems contention remains between supporters of the union and the American Legion and military.

Healing is the goal of Jay Hupp, a Centralia High School graduate from 1956 who lives in Shelton. He’s been digging into the history of the Centralia Armistice Day Tragedy and, in fact, devoted more than 30 hours chronicling a box of papers related to the event donated to the Lewis County Historical Museum last year.

Last Thursday I met with Hupp, a Navy veteran with a master’s degree in business administration. He has worked in economic development in Mason County and served six years as a Shelton port commissioner.

He’s immersed himself in the papers and photographs — many from the trial in Montesano of nine Industrial Workers of the World members and sympathetic attorney Elmer Smith — and summarized information in a 13-page index so it’s easier for researchers to find. We talked about the tragedy, the lynching, and what a majority of jurors in the trial later described as a miscarriage of justice. In fact, all 12 jurors asked the judge for leniency, but he sentenced the men to 25 to 40 years rather than the standard 10 years.

That first Armistice Day celebration saw citizens from Chehalis and Centralia gathered to celebrate the end of World War I a year earlier. American Legion Post Commander Warren Grimm, an attorney who had served in Siberia as part of the American Expeditionary Force, halted the parade on North Tower Avenue before the Roderick Hotel, which served as the headquarters for the I.W.W., or Wobblies, considered a radical and possibly pro-Communist labor organization at that time.

In late April 1918, during a Red Cross parade, the I.W.W.’s previous hall had been raided and union members hauled from the building and booted from the town. The Roderick Hotel’s owner and Bucoda’s Britt Smith, local I.W.W. secretary, both asked law enforcement for protection, with little success. The local Wobbly leader then consulted attorney Elmer Smith, who advised him that they could defend themselves from attack.

When Grimm ordered the parade of American Legionnaires to “halt” and “close up” in front of the new hall on Armistice Day 1919, I.W.W. members, who had armed themselves with rifles and pistols, expected the worst.



According to I.W.W. members, but disputed by the other side, Legionnaires broke away from the parade to storm the union hall.

Gunshots were fired — from the union hall, the Avalon Hotel across the street, and Seminary Hill. Grimm, shot through the chest, bled to death. A .22-caliber bullet struck Arthur McElfresh in the brain, killing him. Both men were shot on the north side of Second Street on Tower Avenue.

Wesley Everest, a 28-year-old I.W.W. member, fled from the hall, gun in hand, and fired a shot that killed Ben Casagranda before running north toward the Skookumchuck River, pursued by several other men. Dale Hubbard, who was armed with a revolver that didn’t function, cornered Everest near the river and ordered him to drop his weapon and surrender. Instead, as Hubbard approached, Everest shot him.

Everest, who had served stateside in the Spruce Division during World War I, was captured and hauled to the city jail with other Wobblies.

That night a mob formed outside the jail, the city’s lights flickered off, and car headlights shut down. In the darkness, a mob hauled Everest from the prison and hung him from the Mellen Street bridge over the Chehalis River.

Many details remain contested even a century later. Who fired the first shots? Did the Legionnaires storm the building before or after shots were fired? Was Everest castrated?

The biggest question is, will the events marking the Centralia Armistice Day Tragedy respect all those who died that day?

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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.