Fast Fact

Did you know the first Chautauqua on
Puget Sound was held at Dilworth Point
on Vashon Island?

It’s true! A summertime gathering of lectures, discussions, music and cultural activities lasting several days, the Chautauqua movement was exceedingly popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Theodore Roosevelt once called the movement “the most American thing in America.” Vashon’s festivities took place on August 3, 1885, and included a seventy-five-cent ferry ride aboard the Zephyr, devotional services, music, German language instruction and more. Traces of Chautauqua can still be found on Vashon. It’s the name of the island’s elemen-tary school. •