For a second year, citizens came together to celebrate the founder of the city, George Washington, on Saturday.
The event by the Centralia Downtown Association included activities in George Washington Park, a 5K by the Run Amok Irish Running Club, music and more. Attendees also paid formal respect to George and Mary Jane Washington at Washington Lawn Cemetery during a graveside memorial.
In 2023, the CDA worked with Centralia City Council to proclaim Aug. 15, George Washington’s birthday, as Founder’s Day in Centralia with the goal of hosting an annual event to honor George and Mary Jane Washington.
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 that 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.
