
Seattle's first Memorial Day - 1879
In 1878, the nation's leading organization of Union veterans of the Civil War, the Grand Army of the Republic, was established for the first time in the Washington Territory. The Department of Washington and Alaska G.A.R. was first created and it's first post, Seattle's Isaac Stevens Post Number 1 was formed. The G.A.R. had been in existence since 1866, but this was the first time it had a formal presence in the Washington Territory. One year later, in 1879, Seattle had its f