1st Annual Tumwater Falls Fest

Event Program (Tentative)

• 10:20 a.m. Welcome and Introduction
• 10:30 a.m. Squaxin Tribal Blessing and Drum Circle
• 11:00 a.m. WDFW Salmon Run Educational Talk/Tour
• 11:30 a.m. Olympia Symphony Brass Ensemble
• 1:00 p.m. Rainier Quartet
• 1:00 p.m. WDFW Salmon Run Educational Talk/Tour
• 2:00 p.m. Joe and Briar

Activities

• Stream Team Nature Sleuth scavenger hunt
• Balloon artists
• Face painting
• Children's printmaking craft (for the first 100 children!)
• Fiber arts craft (courtesy of the Tumwater Historical Association)
• Tenino Stone Carvers Demonstration
• Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife Salmon Run Educational Tour ("Return of the Chinook")
• Henna artist

Food Vendors

• Lava Bowlz
• Taqueria La Esquinita
• & more TBA

Brief History of the Falls

Constructed in 1962 by the Olympia Tumwater Foundation, the 15-acre Brewery Park along the Deschutes River attracts thousands to the city of Tumwater each year. Visitors come to gaze at the waterfalls, bask in the fall color, and experience the annual salmon return. The park, which was originally created to attract visitors on their way to the World’s Fair in Seattle, has a long history of being a gathering place, and a source of economy for the communities that have called it home. 

Tumwater Falls is part of the Squaxin Island Tribes’ ancestral homeland. The falls and the nearby village were gathering places for trade, and a ceremonial sport for local indigenous people in the region. The Squaxin Island Tribe considers the falls historically sacred and has conducted water ceremonies at its shores for centuries. 

The falls also mark the end of the Oregon Trail and the journey of the influential Bush and Simmons families, some of the first American settlers in what is now Washington. In subsequent years, the falls were harnessed to provide energy to flour, saw, and shingle mills, a door factory, a lumberyard, an electric company, and eventually, the Capital Brewing Company.