A violent clash erupted during an Armistice Day parade in the town of Centralia, Washington, between members of the American Legion and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Tensions had built for months in the region as the IWW had established a union hall in Centralia and veterans returning from the First World War organized in the Legion. The parade’s route passed by the IWW hall, and witness reports describe a disorderly formation of Legionnaires coupled with rumors that the IWW expected a pre-planned attack on their hall. At some point in the parade sequence gunfire broke out; multiple Legionnaires were killed or wounded. Among those killed were Legionnaires Warren O. Grimm, Arthur McElfresh, and Ben Cassagranda. IWW involvement included the capture of member Wesley Everest, who was later removed from jail and lynched by a mob.
The immediate significance of this event lies in the eruption of organized labor conflict into public violence in a returning-veterans community. The IWW had been active in the Pacific Northwest and faced hostility from local business interests, law enforcement, and veteran organizations. The men of the American Legion were both veterans and local civic leaders who viewed the IWW with suspicion, especially in a post-war environment of fear regarding radical labor movements and Bolshevik influences. The Centralia confrontation therefore embodied multiple fault-lines: labor versus veteran identity, union rights versus anti-radical sentiment, and local business nexus versus organized workers.
Within judicial and historical terms the outcome of the Centralia event bore long-term consequences. Authorities arrested and charged multiple IWW members; seven were eventually convicted of second-degree murder and received lengthy prison sentences. The legal process received national attention as an emblem of the broader First Red Scare in the United States. Meanwhile the memorialization of the event took shape when the Legion erected a statue called “The Sentinel” in Centralia in 1924 to honor slain legionnaires. In more recent decades, the IWW and labor historians have challenged the dominant narrative, put forward alternate interpretations of who fired first, and called for broader recognition of the IWW victims.
The incident thus occupies a crucial place in American labor history and veteran-politics intersections. It signaled that wartime veteran status alone did not inoculate individuals or groups from incurring violent conflict at home. It underscored the volatile mixing of local politics, returning soldiers, labor organizing, and fears of radicalism. Furthermore, the event had a chilling effect on labor organizing in the Pacific Northwest during the post-war period, as union groups faced public backlash and legal jeopardy. At the same time, the contested memory of the Centralia Tragedy illuminates how public monuments, local narratives, and labor-veteran identities have been shaped by conflicting versions of the same event.
In municipal and cultural terms, Centralia’s experience serves as a case-study of how a local parade—symbolizing national war-celebration and veteran reintegration—became the site of deadly conflict. The late-1910s context of high union activism, mass demobilization of war veterans, and social fears of radicalism made Centralia a flash-point rather than an anomaly. The ongoing debate over the event’s meaning and monuments continues to influence Centralia’s collective memory and local heritage interpretation. For historians and educators, the Centralia Tragedy offers a reminder of how local tensions can reflect national dynamics and how returning war veterans, labor politics, and community identity may collide in dangerous ways.
References / More Knowledge:
Copeland, Tom. The Centralia Tragedy of 1919: Elmer Smith and the Wobblies. University of Washington Press, 2011. Available at: https://content.lib.washington.edu/iwwweb/read.html
“Four Men Die In The Centralia Massacre On November 11, 1919.” HistoryLink, November 6, 2003. Available at: https://www.historylink.org/file/5605
“How the IWW Grew After the Centralia Tragedy.” JSTOR Daily, January 13, 2021. Available at: https://daily.jstor.org/how-the-iww-grew-after-the-centralia-tragedy/
“Washington Legion Post Marks 100th Anniversary Of Centralia Tragedy.” The American Legion, November 13, 2019. Available at: https://www.legion.org/information-center/news/veterans-day/2019/november/washington-legion-post-marks-100th-anniversary-centralia-tragedy
“Commemoration Of The Centralia Tragedy Of 1919.” Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation Blog, November 12, 2009. Available at: https://dahp.wa.gov/news-and-events/blog/commemoration-of-the-centralia-tragedy-of-1919/