Newspaper clippings - Yakima social life and customs - Transcript (part 4).

Abstract

"The first Fourth of July celebration held in North Yakima was in the year 1885 when the population of the city was about 500. ... Wilbur F. Sanders, afterwards United States senator from Montana was booked to deliver the oration but at the last moment he disappointed. The task then fell upon Colonel L. S. Howlett who it is said delivered as able an address as ever heard in the valley. Unfortunately the colonel was interrupted in the middle of his speech by George Ferguson who came down on horseback and told Mr. Howlett that his wife was dying of a paraletic stroke."