Salmon Days

Earl Robinson, who was president of the Issaquah Chamber, looked at the salmon tourism already drawing people to the local hatchery and figured the town ought to have a festival of its own [1]. The old Labor Day gathering had quit two years before, so there was an opening [1]. The Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce put on the first one in October 1970, and about 20,000 people came [1]. For the rest of the 1970s it stayed small, with limited attractions [1]. Seafair sanctioned it in 1980, which brought clowns, pirates and floats, and an adult parade alongside the children's one [1]. The festival joined the Northwest Festivals Association in 1985, and hired a paid director in 1987 [1]. Attendance more than doubled across the 1980s, from 65,000 in 1980 to 150,000 in 1988 [1]. The crowds held through the 1990s and 2000s, averaging around 150,000 to 200,000 [1]. In 2006 the economic impact was put at about 1.5 million dollars [1].