Following a request from Centralia Downtown Association Executive Director MacKenzie McGee last month to designate Founder’s Day as an official holiday in Centralia, the Centralia City Council unanimously approved the request during its regular Tuesday night meeting.
The decision makes every Aug. 15 Founder’s Day in honor of Centralia's founder, George Washington.
McGee originally requested the city designate every second Saturday in August as Founder’s Day during June 27’s Centralia City Council meeting.
Centralia City Manager Rob Hill explained Aug. 15 was chosen as it is Washington’s actual birthday. While his parents’ exact identities remain unknown, Washington was born on Aug. 15, 1817, in Virginia to a woman, who was thought to be English, and an enslaved man.
“I’m in full support of the resolution and think it’s long overdue,” Centralia City Councilor Mark Westley said Tuesday.
The Centralia Downtown Association’s Founder’s Day celebration is still planned for Aug. 12 this year, as previously reported by The Chronicle. The celebration will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. at George Washington Park — located at 110 S. Silver St. — and will feature free music and family-friendly activities.
“Planning is well under way and we look forward to working together to celebrate our founder with our entire community. I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from George,” McGee said on June 27. “‘I want to do right by my fellow man, and if I do, I will never lose anything by it.’”
Following his birth, Washington’s father was sold to a plantation further south, some believe as punishment, and his mother gave him to Washington’s adoptive parents, James and Anna Cochran.
A self-educated and successful businessman, Washington faced discriminatory laws and racist people throughout his life, eventually settling in the Oregon Territory in 1852 along with his adoptive parents.
He filed the original plat which established the town of Centerville, later changed to Centralia, in 1875.
Washington was a deeply religious man known to sing gospel hymns while he worked. He famously refused to sell land to anyone who planned to open a saloon or brothel saying he “would rather burn the place down then have it used for a purpose like that.”
During an economic panic in 1893, he traveled to Portland and purchased rice, flour, sugar, side bacon and wholesale lard by the ton to distribute to those in need in his own community.
He left the church he donated the land for and helped build when new congregation members refused to take part in services with him in attendance. Washington wanted the newcomers to have a place to worship, so he simply built a second church.
To read more about Washington, visit https://tinyurl.com/dsfc4v6a.
For more information on the Centralia Downtown Association, visit https://downtowncentralia.org/.
