Buttons - Events - 1998

McCleary Bear Festival

1958-1998

Celebrating 40 years

July 10th-12th

On the curl: G.H. Stamp Works, Aberdeen, Wash.

OK, here's a local pet peeve of mine. The Bear Festival did not start in 1958. It started in 1959. But locals persist in counting an annual event as if it was human. For an event, Day One is Year One.

Yet considerable expense has been made toward printing up banners, buttons, and other promotional materials celebrating 1958 as the inaugural year of the McCleary Bear Festival. Well, it's wrong, WRONG, I tell you! You can look it up.

As you can see by the button reproduced for this McCleary Time Capsule, the 1959 page documents the first Bear Festival. It says: McCleary 1st Annual 2nd Growth Festival, 1959.