Pe Ell 4th of July Festival

On the afternoon of the Fourth of July the Pe Ell parade steps off at Main Street and Fourth Avenue and runs down Main Street to Pe Ell Avenue. The festival lists what turns up in it: patriotic floats, classic tractors, horses, bikes, cars and trucks, off-road vehicles, pets, royalty, and community groups. Entrants are asked to scatter candy toward the curb. An announcer gives each entry thirty seconds to a minute, reading from a description the entrants write in advance from the announcer’s point of view. The 2027 parade is set for 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 4.

Pe Ell lies in the Chehalis River Valley of western Lewis County, not far from the Pacific County line. The state estimated its population at 655 in 2023. The Pe Ell 4th of July Festival Committee, a volunteer body, puts on the festival free to the public and bills the 2027 edition as its 33rd. By the committee’s account, its volunteers work in matching shirts in the days before the Fourth, coordinating the parade lineup, helping set up the fireworks display, and staying on afterward for the cleanup crew.

The Fourth on Main Street

Festivities begin as early as 10 a.m. on the Fourth and run all day, with vendor booths set through town. At noon the classic car show opens at St. Joseph’s Church, 417 North Main Street, and stays until 4:00. The 2027 show is its fourth. Its awards run from Best in Show and People’s Choice to Best Contemporary, for cars from 1970 or newer, and a category the committee spells “Muscliest Muscle Car.” Best in Show takes home a package of three custom photographs from Shutter Release Photography. From noon to 2:00 Michael Adams plays live music downtown while the parade crowd gathers.

After the parade, Lewis County Axe Throwing opens its lanes from 3:00 to 5:00, free to throwers, with trained staff giving instruction. In 2026 the lanes ran in a trailer, and the committee reminded throwers to wear closed-toe shoes to get in. At 3:30 warm-up boards open for the inaugural Timber Toss Classic, a partners’ tournament that begins at 4:00 for prizes and the title of first champions. The 2026 Fourth also had a community burger feed. The day ends with fireworks, scheduled to start around 10 p.m.

The Saturday before

The program has spread to the day before the Fourth. The 2027 Saturday opens at 8 a.m. with the festival 5K, which starts and finishes at the New Harvest Church parking lot, 134 Mauerman Road, in Chehalis. Most of the festival’s pages put it on Saturday, July 3. Its guidelines page gives “Saturday, July 4, 2027.” The course is an out-and-back on local roads and the Willapa Hills Trail, and the entry form warns of gravel, mud, uneven ground, and changing weather. Lewis County Fire District #11 stations an ambulance and EMTs at the start and finish and sets medical and hydration support at the turnaround. The race was first run in 2026, a year the festival’s 5K page calls the “Founders Day 5K.” Awards go to the top three men, women, and youth.

At 11:00 comes the Lard Butt 1+K, a walk of a kilometer “and then some,” with water stations and pastry stops along the route. Costumes are welcome. At noon the inaugural Battle of the Pierogi sets teams of families, friends, coworkers, or neighbors against each other, one flavor per team. The first 50 festival guests taste the entries and vote, and the winners hold the title of Pe Ell’s Best Pierogi for a year. At 2:00 the Pe Ell High School Volleyball Team runs a casual two-on-two tournament on grass.

The evening belongs to the motorcycle show, held downtown from 4:00 to 6:00. The festival held its first motorcycle show in 2026, with the Rock City Band playing, and the committee reported it “was such a hit we will be bringing it back in 2027.” All motorcycles are welcome, from cruisers to daily riders. The awards include Best Three-Wheeler and Best Small Displacement, for machines of 250cc or smaller. Axe throwing runs alongside from 4:00 to 6:00. From 6:00 to 9:00 the Saturday stage goes to country music. The festival’s events page heads the act “Chris Gunter and the Honkey Tonk Drifters” and spells the bandleader Chris Guenther in its text. It describes him as a Blackboard recording artist and multi-instrumentalist with eight independently released albums of original Country and Western music.

Bunco, bingo, and the fireworks fund

The money for the Fourth is raised the rest of the year. The committee calls the months after the festival its “Fundraising season,” and its stated aim is “the best Fireworks show we can!” In 2026 that meant a Back to School Bunco, a Tailgate Bunco on October 3 at a Fowler Road address in Chehalis, and a Turkey Fall Bingo set for 6:00 p.m. on November 21 at the Pe Ell VFW Hall.

The hall comes by way of Janet Toepelt of Evey’s Café and Lounge, whom the committee named a Legacy Sponsor in July 2026. She has opened her meeting room to the committee and made the VFW Hall available for its bingo nights and craft fairs. The committee wrote: “When we’ve been in a last-minute crunch trying to fund our fireworks, she has rallied her customers and community to help make sure our celebration continued.” The 2026 sponsor roll also carries Weyerhaeuser, Toepelt Log Inc., and Pe Ell’s Senior Citizen Group. It also lists Carben and Carlee Burrill, whom the committee thanked as its “great little Glow Stick sponsors,” back for a second year.

A town of 120 years

The 2026 festival was held for two anniversaries: the nation’s 250th birthday and the 120th of the town. Harold and Regina Coleman were grand marshals, and Lewis County Fire District #11 honored Harold for his years of service with the district. Terra Gerling sang the national anthem. Pat Villanueva, a Vietnam veteran, raised the flag. Afterward the committee posted a photograph of Pe Ell “when our great town was but just 5 years old.” The Chronicle sent photographer Otto Rabe to the parade. In July 2006 the town had marked its centennial with a four-day commemoration, and in 2007 it began Polish Daze, a festival for its Polish heritage.

Non-Native settlement in the valley began in the 1850s. The first settler is considered to have been Pierre Charles, a French Canadian trapper and former Hudson’s Bay Company man. The town’s name is usually traced to him, though HistoryLink notes that no account of it has been documented. The Town of Pe Ell gives two versions. In the more accepted one, local Native Americans could not pronounce “Pierre,” and their attempts became “Pe Ell.” In the other, P and L were the initials of Pierre Charles and his Native American wife. Joseph and Karolina Mauermann arrived by wagon in September 1855 as the first permanent residents, and their homestead came to be called Mauermann’s Prairie. On May 27, 1891, their son Omer and his wife Tillie platted the town on their own homestead.

In 1892 the Northern Pacific’s branch line from Chehalis to South Bend came through, and the company built a two-story wooden depot. That same year Polish and Swiss immigrants established the Roman Catholic parish of St. Joseph. Many of the settlers came from Poland, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, and Switzerland. By 1900 Pe Ell was a logging town of three sawmills, three shake mills, and a broom-handle factory. Burlington Northern discontinued the line in 1990, and the state bought the right-of-way in 1993. The last 22-mile link of the Willapa Hills Trail, between Chehalis and Pe Ell, was finished in June 2016. Its trailhead sits near the center of town.

Residents voted to incorporate on March 1, 1906, and the incorporation took effect March 9. By 1909 the town had five saloons and a three-story opera house. That November its voters went dry, 78 to 58, five years ahead of statewide Prohibition. In 1911 there was talk of changing the town’s spelling to “P-L.” The spelling never changed.