Washtucna Independence Day Celebration

On the Fourth of July 2026 a cattle rancher rode an inflatable rooster down Main Street in Washtucna, handing out fried chicken along the parade route. Her friend, an apple farmer, worked beside her as a live tube man. Sonny’s Tavern posted the picture afterward. The tavern stands at 250 Main Street next to Bassett Park. It hosted the 2026 celebration, which ran from seven in the evening of July 3 to seven the next evening, and invited “one and all” to town to mark America’s 250th birthday.

Washtucna has about 200 people. The town’s website places it among wheat fields and cattle ranches in eastern Washington, 17 miles from Palouse Falls. It also says birders come from across the state to Bassett Park, where 147 species have been recorded, among them the Western Tanager. On the Fourth the park holds the youth parade, the picnic lunch and the horseshoe pits.

Check-in at May and Main

The Ritzville Adams County Journal printed the 2025 schedule. Parade check-in opened at 10 a.m. at May and Main, and the parade stepped off at 10:30. Children came first in the Kiddie Parade, themed red, white and blue. First responders followed, then the grand marshals. A 2024 announcement from the Innovia Foundation describes local children and families on bicycles and wagons, with a float parade behind them.

The 2025 grand marshals were Cathy and Scott Blankenship, chosen “for their many years of service to Washtucna.” They had been married 49 years, had raised five children in town, and had 10 grandchildren. Scott worked on his family’s farm and in trucking. Since 2010 he has worked winters for the Department of Transportation as a temporary worker, and he sits on the “mosquito board” and the Board of Trustees at Washtucna Community Church. Cathy cooked at Washtucna School for 17 years. When she retired in 2015 she started a bed and breakfast in their home. She serves on the Town Council and is an elder of the church, and both of them sing there.

At 11:15 Ritzville Boy Scout Troop No. 888 presented the Flag Ceremony in Bassett Park, and the picnic began at 11:30. The 2025 menu was hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, coleslaw, pasta salad, broccoli salad, chips, brownies, Rice Krispie treats, water and lemonade. “The meal is not a potluck,” the Journal noted. The Washtucna Band cooked and served it, and donations went toward the band’s tour of the Oregon coast in April. In 2024 Sonny’s gave out free Ferdinand’s Grabbers ice cream sandwiches for dessert.

Lora Hille, a volunteer, works the day’s schedule. The Innovia release calls her band teacher Lora Hillie. “I organize the parade, and then I run down to the park and serve the meal with my husband, (Brian Hille,) who is on the Town Council,” she told the Journal. “Mayor Brett Guske helps cook the hamburgers.”

The Iron Slinging Open

The horseshoes begin at 1 p.m. Sonny’s Iron Slinging Open is an elimination tournament for teams of two. In 2024 the field was 32 players in 16 teams. Each player received a Sonny’s hat. The winners took a grand prize and a hand-crafted trophy, made by a local shop teacher and her students, which is displayed in the tavern. In 2025 every player got a patriotic bandana, and there was prize money.

The third annual Open, in 2026, drew nineteen teams, the same number as the year before, according to the tavern. The title went to “Horsin’ Around,” the teenagers Blake and Clayton Johnson. Their mother and grandmother, Heather and Judy, had won it in 2025. “We’re pretty sure their Great Grandpa Dean is smiling down on this and the tradition that is alive and well,” the tavern posted. It thanked Lloyd Stoess for running the tournament, and the Town of Washtucna staff and volunteers who improved the pits and park and maintain them.

The Lions Club years

For decades the Lion’s Club of Washtucna, with other community groups, led the celebration. In 2017 the Journal invited people to observe the day the “old-fashioned” way in Bassett Park. The day began with the Firemen’s breakfast, served from 6:30 to 9 a.m. The kiddie parade and the main parade followed at 10:30. At noon a ceremonial flag raising opened a potluck lunch, with the Lions supplying hamburgers and hot dogs and pop selling for $1 beside the iced tea and lemonade. The town pool was free from 1 to 5 p.m. Horseshoes started at 1 in the park, and bingo closed the day’s festivities at 1:30.

According to Hille, the day “got waylaid during COVID shutdowns, and then members of the Lion’s Club really dwindled down. We started back up in 2023 with just a little parade around the park to get revved up again.” In the fall of 2023 Bridget Coon, a Washtucna local, reopened Sonny’s Tavern with a new brand and a family-friendly focus.

In 2024 the Innovia Foundation of Spokane marked its 50th anniversary by sponsoring a renewal of the celebration. “Due to the impact of the pandemic, the community of Washtucna has experienced a disconnect,” Coon said that year. Hille recalled what followed: “Last year, law enforcement came and shut down Main Street for us and we did a little bigger parade on Main Street. And we put the picnic back into the park.” In 2025 she still named the club as the event’s backer: “The whole event is sponsored and run by the Lion’s Club.”

Many waters

The Washtucna Heritage Museum calls the Independence Day celebration a century-old tradition. It keeps a Fourth of July album of photographs and asks viewers to say if they recognize anyone. Hille’s own reckoning is that the event has been happening for “many years.”

According to the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation’s Revisiting Washington tour, the town’s name comes from a Native American word said to mean “many waters.” The Palouse people gave that name to a large spring on the town site. Local tradition holds instead that the town and valley were named for Chief Washtucna. The same source says the L. L. Bassett family founded the town in the early 1890s, and it describes Washtucna as “a scattered, two-street village squeezed into a bend of the coulee.”