72nd Regiment, Seaforth Highlanders of Canada Regimental Band march in the Golden Potlatch parade in Seattle, Washington, 1913. THis photo is sometimes labelled as Tacoma. The Golden Potlatch (or Potlatch Days) was a festival in Seattle, Washington, United States in 1911–1914 and 1935–1941. The idea of an annual Festival in Seattle followed the success of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909. The 'Golden Potlatch' event was conceived to keep Seattle in the public eye. Seattle wanted to have an event that would challenge the Portland Rose Festival and gain national attention. Seattle’s Potlatch festival was also a way for a certain class of Seattleites—specifically, the city’s new commercial elite—to tell stories about the city and its history. Called a “triumph of symbolism” by one observer, the Potlatch appropriated Native imagery to create a regional vision of civic development. The 1913 festival started with high hopes but was marred by the "Potlatch Riots". On the first day of the Potlatch some soldiers and sailors were involved in a fistfight when an IWW Industrial Workers of the World speaker supposedly 'insulted their uniforms'. A newspaper story the next day further inflamed the situation resulting in soldiers and sailors aided by civilians looting and burning the offices of the IWW and the Socialist Party. A rear admiral in charge of the reserve fleet expressed regret about the outbreak and said he had dispatched a patrol to round up the troublemakers. On July 19, 1913, Mayor George Cotterill, responding to street riots the previous evening during the Potlatch Days festival, declared an emergency, and assumed direct control of the police, closed saloons, banned street speakers, and attempted to temporarily close down The Seattle Times, which he believed provoked the riots. VANCOUVER ARCHIVES ITEM DETAILS PAGES ATTACHED