Laredo's Washington's Birthday Celebration

The first celebration, in 1898, was staged by the Improved Order of Red Men, which set up a Laredo chapter called Yaqui Tribe No. 59, borrowing the name of a living Native nation. Years earlier Mayor Samuel Jarvis had held a reception at his home for Washington's birthday and urged a larger observance, though he died in 1893. The association took its state charter in 1923, and in 1924 the first Colonial Pageant presented thirteen Laredo girls as the Thirteen Colonies. The festival still includes a Princess Pocahontas pageant and ball beside the Society of Martha Washington pageant.

What the plaque says

Laredo's Washington's Birthday Celebration In 1897, Laredo's local lodge of the Great Council of Texas of the Improved Order of Red Men decided to organize a celebration of George Washington's birthday. On February 21, 1898, the Red Men held a two-day festival featuring a mock battle, parade, concert, reproduction of the Boston Tea Party and fireworks. The lodge held the next celebration two years later in 1900, beginning the annual observance of this tradition. In 1902, the City of Laredo and the Chamber of Commerce became involved. In 1923, the Washington's Birthday Celebration Association of Laredo formed and began overseeing the festival. Several events have become an annual part of the celebration, including galas, parades, luncheons and a bridge ceremony whose purpose is to unite the cultures of Mexico and the United States in festivity. Started in 1900 with the meeting of the mayors of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, the bridge ceremony has grown more elaborate as time has passed. It has often included important political officials, such as Texas governors, U.S. Senators and Representatives, and Cabinet members. Other events added through the years have also sought to promote a positive relationship between the United States and Mexico. Today, the celebration continues to grow in scope and influence, lasting as long as three to four weeks each year and bringing millions of dollars into the city. It remains a vital part of Laredo's tradition and economy. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Agustín Plaza — steps away
  The shaded square at the center of Laredo's 1755 town, where Carrizo families, Spanish ranchers and a century of border politics shared the same ground.
• San Agustín Cathedral — steps away
  Laredo's Gothic Revival parish church, finished in 1872 on a parish older than Texas statehood, and the mother church of the Diocese of Laredo since 2000.
• Republic of the Rio Grande Museum — steps away
  A stone-and-adobe Laredo house, by tradition the capitol of a federalist republic that lasted ten months in 1840, now a museum of life in a mid-nineteenth-century home.
• Fort McIntosh Historic District at Laredo College — 1.0 mi
  An 1849 Army post on the Rio Grande above Laredo, its barracks, officers' quarters and 1895 chapel still standing on a college campus that took over the site in 1947.

More markers nearby

• City Hall and Market House — steps away
• Laredo Election Riot, 1886 — steps away
• Benavides Brothers — steps away
• The Ramón Family — steps away