Anatone Day

The notices ask visitors to bring lawn chairs. The City of Asotin’s calendar of annual events says little else about the day: “Bring your lawn chairs and enjoy a fun day in Anatone!” For 2026 the city left the date blank, “June ____th.”

The 2026 Anatone Day was held Saturday, June 27, at the Anatone Community Hall, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Vendor booths opened at nine. Music started at the same hour, played by Anatone community members, by Bret Carlson, and on what the Dailyfly listing called “Rod Sangster’s famous player piano.” A photograph in the hall’s own gallery shows the instrument under the caption “No event is complete without this guy and his player piano!”

Pork at noon, poker at half past one

A barbecue pork dinner “with all the trimmings” was served at noon in 2026 for $10 a plate, with children five and under eating free. The hall’s photographs show pork roasts after 11 hours in the pit and then being cut up for serving. Through the day there were cornhole and horseshoe games, an antique tractor display, homemade pies, and Anatone Day shirts and hoodies for sale.

At 1:30 the ATV Poker Run set out at $5 a hand. Sangster told the Lewiston Tribune in 2021 that the winner usually walks away with “a good chunk of cash.” The live auction and the raffle drawing came at 4 p.m. The hall’s gallery also shows the auctioneer and his helper at work, raffle tickets, and a few of the vendors.

The hall on the flats

The hall describes Anatone as a small community in the southeast corner of Washington, a few miles from the Idaho and Oregon borders. The Snake River lies to the east, the Grande Ronde River to the south, and the Blue Mountains to the west. In the hall’s words, “few people actually live in the town.” Many families live out on the flats among wheat fields and family farms, or up in the woods next to the Blue Mountains, and many work in Lewiston or Clarkston, about 25 miles off.

The hall rents to anyone in the community for weddings and family reunions. It holds an event almost every month: a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in March, a cemetery cleanup in May, a community yard sale, Patriot Day in September, a craft fair with a soup and pie luncheon in October, and a cookie exchange in December. Its own pages call Anatone Day its “claim to fame.” A seven-member board of directors runs the hall and holds a special meeting each year to plan the day. According to the Tribune, all proceeds go to the maintenance and operation of the hall, which the paper called a hub for the farming town.

The sources word the date in slightly different ways. The hall sets Anatone Day on “the last Saturday of the last full weekend in June.” The 1991 newspaper wrote that the last Saturday in June “has been the traditional time.” In 2022 the hall announced the day for June 25.

A hot Saturday in 2021

There was no gathering in 2020. On June 25, 2021, Kerri Sandaine of the Lewiston Tribune reported that residents, “after a year of being cooped up,” were eager to see friends and neighbors again. The forecast was for triple-digit heat. Sangster, 73 years old and on the organizing committee, promised cold water and shade canopies. “Come out and enjoy the day,” he said. “There will be plenty of rehydration opportunities.”

That year the program ran from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. It opened with the Cowboy Christian Balladeers and a horseshoe tournament. The hall’s gallery names the group the Christian Cowboy Balladeers and says they “always start the event.” The pork lunch cost $7 a plate. Kids’ games began at one o’clock, and the dancing ran from 7 to 11 p.m. to the Beargrass band.

Sangster said some of the people who come are descendants of pioneers who settled the area in the 1800s. “At one time, Anatone was as big as Asotin, and Clarkston was practically nonexistent,” he said. The Tribune cited the Asotin Museum archives as saying Anatone was the first city established in Asotin County. It gave the present population as an estimated fewer than 50. Some who come to the day attended the old Anatone High School, which taught students from 1879 to 1976, when it consolidated with Asotin. “Everyone is welcome to our celebration,” Sangster said. “It’s a good time for us to get together.”

Fiddlers, goats, and a live pig

The series began in 1982. On Thursday, June 27, 1991, the Asotin County American of Clarkston ran a page by Bob Weatherly announcing the coming Saturday’s celebration. The paper counted it as the ninth since 1982. Old Time Fiddlers were to open the day, playing outdoors if the weather was fine and inside the community hall if not.

The deep-pit pork barbecue began at noon. It came with baked beans, coleslaw, rolls, and applesauce, and with coffee, iced tea, and lemonade. Plates cost $4 for those six and older and $3 for senior citizens, and children five and younger ate free. Relay races and other kids’ games started at 1:30. The kids rodeo followed at 2:30, with goat tail tying and untying, a greased pig race, and a calf scramble. Four-H club members sold pop, ice cream bars, and candy to pay for their activities. Tickets were sold for a live pig, to be drawn for during the day.

A dance began at 9 p.m. in the hall, $5 for couples and $3 for singles. It was open only to those 18 and older unless accompanied by a parent. “Identification will be required to prove age,” said Sharon Hafer of Anatone.

That year’s T-shirts carried a map of Washington on the front, with a star marking Anatone. On the back was a copy of the population sign on the outskirts of town.

The same page printed old photographs lent by local families as part of the celebration. One shows Anatone in 1909, with the Herring Hotel, the flour mill, and the school, and Big Butte behind them. Another shows the flour mill that same year, with sacks of grain stored at left. A third shows a woman believed to be Mrs. Stukey walking south on the main street about 1925. In the last, the stagecoach owner and driver Crayton Owen stands with his sidekick Ott Doty in front of the Anatone Hotel, sometime before 1910.