This Week in Cascadia: June 4th – June 9th
This Week in Cascadia is a weekly segment. You can view all Weeks in Cascadia history from its main page here.
Submit a historical news item from Cascadia’s past! The button below leads to a reader submission form.
This Week in Cascadia: June 4th – June 9th
June 4, 1962 – Dr. Jonas Salk addresses leading scientists, educators, community leaders, and fairgoers at the Century 21 Exposition at the Seattle World’s Fair. Dr. Salk invented the first vaccine capable of protecting humans from poliomyelitis (polio). It was introduced to the public between 1955 and 1958 and earned him near-deity status among parents, for whom the threat of their children catching polio had been a persistent terror. Dr. Salk never patented his vaccine, which meant that they did not directly benefit financially from it. As a direct result, the vaccines were much less expensive to produce.
June 5, 1976 – After a four year absence, the Portland Rose Festival debutes featuring a new nighttime parade, dubbed the Starlight Parade. The grand marshals of the parade were swimming star Kim Peyton and University of Oregon basketball star Ron Lee. 
Brass bands, drill teams, illuminated floats, a Chinese lion and one miniature train threaded their way through the streets of downtown Portland Saturday night in the Starlight Parade before tense of thousands of delighted spectators The extravaganza, the first of three parades that will highlight the 1976 Rose Festival, wound some 35 blocks from the North Park Blocks to SW 14th Avenue and Yamhill in about 45 minutes.
June 6, 1968 – African-American civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory begins serving a 90-day sentence in the Thurston County Jail in Olympia, by pledging to live on only bread and distilled water. He goes on the hunger strike to protest state laws restricting Native American rights. Gregory was convicted in 1966 for illegally fishing in the Nisqually River. His sentence began after court appeals failed. On the 39th day of his fast, Gregory is removed from the jail to a hospital because of his deteriorating physical condition.
Dick Gregory’s opinions and perspectives singular, strong and his own. We present the following uncensored documentary for your consideration.
IT’S GOONIES DAY!!!
June 7, 1985 – The adventure comedy “The Goonies” opens in theaters. Partly filmed in and around Astoria and Cannon Beach, the $20 million Spielberg-produced film grosses over $60 million, and is celebrated to this day on Oregons north coast. In 2010, Astoria throws a Goonies 25th Anniversary Celebration and Mayer Willis Van Dusen declares June 7 to be Goonies Day in Astoria, Oregon.
Feeling like celebrating GOONIES DAY this year?! Here’s some good advice from discoverourcoast.com take-a-goonies-pilgrimage
Currious about where the actors aren’t now? Here’s a YouTube clip for ya.
June 8, 1935 – The liberal-left Washington Commonwealth Federation (WCF) is founded in Seattle as a coalition of groups to work for political and economic reform during the Great Depression. The WCF combines the unemployed with organized labor and liberals of the Democratic Party, mostly from the Puget Sound region. The WCF’s first program is production-for-use instead of profit. Not inaccurately derided as a Communist Party front for its pro-Soviet positions, the Federation was also a political party for the city of Seattle, and the left wing and New Deal faction of the Democratic Party. During World War II, WCF influence waned and the active membership dwindled to about a dozen. In 1945, the group dissolved, “having fulfilled its historical and anti-Fascist role.”
June 9, 1902 –Harry Tracy and David Merrill, both members of the “Hole-in-the Wall” gang serving time for various acts of burglary and highway robbery in Portland, Oregon , escape from the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. The two men flee north into Washington. Near Chehalis, Tracy shoots Merrill in the back, and continues on. After a week-long crime-spree in King County, Tracy escapes to Eastern Washington, where he dies by his own hand, following a gun battle in a Lincoln County wheat field.
Don’t forget to submit your own Cascadian history events at the link below.
This Week in Cascadia is a weekly segment. You can view all Weeks in Cascadia history from its main page here.
