Walla Walla Pioneer Pageant records, 1922-1989

The Walla Walla Pioneer Pageant, titled How the West Was Won, was first performed in June 1923 as part of the 75th anniversary commemoration of the Whitman Mission killings. Written by Whitman College President Stephen B. L. Penrose and directed by Percy Jewett Burrell, the production brought together more than 2,500 participants from across the region. Faculty, students, alumni, and local residents collaborated in staging the outdoor pageant, which was performed again in 1924. Set against a backdrop of romanticized pioneer history, the production aimed to celebrate the region's settler legacy and reinforce Whitman College's role in shaping local identity.

However, the pageant's portrayal of the past was shaped almost entirely by settler narratives. It centered missionary figures such as Marcus and Narcissa Whitman as heroic pioneers, while offering little to no space for the voices or experiences of the Cayuse and other Indigenous peoples whose lives were deeply impacted by colonization. The events commemorated through these performances were complex and violent, and while the pageant sought to memorialize regional identity, it did so through a lens that often romanticized conquest and obscured Indigenous resistance and survival.

The archival collection documents the planning, execution, and community response to the pageant. It includes scripts, correspondence, promotional flyers, souvenir programs, meeting minutes, financial records, photographs, and other ephemera spanning from 1922 to 1989. These materials offer a detailed look into the logistics of a large-scale civic production and the cultural narratives it promoted. While the pageant was a major community event, the records also reveal the financial and organizational challenges it faced, including cost overruns and mixed public reception.

Importantly, the records provide a lens into early 20th-century historical storytelling and its limitations. The pageant largely omitted Indigenous perspectives and instead presented a triumphant version of settler history, a reflection of the era's dominant historical memory. Today, these materials invite both celebration of local collaboration and critical reflection on the narratives we choose to tell, and those we leave out.