This week in history we are going to examine the Oroville Weekly Gazette printed 18 September 1922. What caught my attention while looking through this newspaper was an article titled “Omak Industrial Fair”. Since I haven’t written a blog on Omak I figured now would be a good time.
This article is about a fair that Omak decided to put together that started on September 8, 1922 and went for about a week. Now remember, Omak’s population at the time was 525, according to the Washington State Census. This would have been a big endevor for the town to put together, but the community was more than willing to. They called the fair “Omak Industrial Fair, Pageant of Progress and Auto Show.” This is why they made it a week-long event, because they were doing all three at the exact same time. Now according to this article this was the biggest undertaking ever in Okanogan County’s history. The fair would have “agricultural, horticultural, stock, industrial, and domestic exhibits, the Pageant of Progress is probably a procession, or something of that nature, the auto show naturally would be an exhibit of the gas wagon in their innumerable designs.” Honestly, the way the writer describes what he can only assume would be happening at the fair makes this article enjoyable to read. I have never known anyone to call automobiles “gas wagons” before but now that I have, I kind of wish to start calling them that.
The article also goes on that there will be horse races, circus acts, and an airplane show at the fair as well. There was also expected to be a lot of shows and activities for the audience to enjoy. The writer goes on to talk about the gossip surrounding the queen election. Since the queen will be elected by votes that come in from all over the county the candidates also were from different locations as well. The gossip is that friction has come about due to the votes that have come in. It would seem as though all the ballots that have been created have come in, with some extra ballots included. The standings that the writer reports is from the Omak Chronicle:
Omak
- Harriet Hampson- 3,286,500
- Helen Shumway- 1,229,600
- Grace Eden- 10,000
Okanogan
- Helen Gojeski- 75,000
- Hatty Meyers- 20,700
Oroville
- Pauline Schassberger- 660,000
The writer remarks that they did not think their Oroville candidate would win but they are pleased to see that she is in third standing. I did jump ahead to the following publication and it would seem as though Oroville’s candidate did remain in third place. The newspaper did not report who did win but based on the numbers I would assume Harriet Hampson won.
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