Tacoma Can Welcome Fall the 1855 Way at Fort Nisqually

Long before pumpkin-spice drinks became the unofficial announcement that fall had arrived, the end of the growing season was celebrated with fresh cider, communal meals and traditions marking the year’s final harvest.

Fort Nisqually Living History Museum will bring some of those customs back to life during Harvest Home on Saturday, September 12.

The family-oriented celebration runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. inside Point Defiance Park. Visitors can help press apples grown in the museum’s own orchard, make apple cider, create seasonal crafts and sample foods prepared in Fort Nisqually’s period kitchen.

Historical interpreters will also demonstrate cooking techniques and explain the crops, animals and agricultural work that sustained the settlement portrayed by the museum in 1855.

The celebration culminates with the decoration of a traditional hock cart used to carry the final harvest of the year. Visitors can then watch the crowning of the Harvest King and Queen—an old seasonal custom recognizing the completion of another year’s work.

Games and hands-on activities will be offered throughout the day, allowing children and adults to do more than simply observe the history around them.

Harvest Home is especially appropriate for Fort Nisqually because agriculture became central to the settlement’s survival and commercial importance.

The Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort Nisqually in 1833 as a fur-trading post. As the fur trade declined, the company formed the Puget Sound Agricultural Company in 1839 and turned its attention toward large-scale farming and livestock.

Operating from Fort Nisqually, the agricultural company raised cattle, sheep and horses along with crops that included wheat, barley, oats and peas. At one point, it claimed approximately 160,000 acres around Puget Sound.

The museum interprets life at the settlement in 1855, when the British outpost found itself surrounded by growing American settlement and increasing demands for its agricultural land.

The original Fort Nisqually was not located in Tacoma. It stood farther south in what is now DuPont. After the Hudson’s Bay Company eventually withdrew from Washington Territory, most of the complex disappeared.

During the 1930s, a Works Progress Administration project reconstructed the fort in Point Defiance Park. Two buildings—the Factor’s House and the Granary—were preserved from the original DuPont site and relocated to Tacoma. They remain among the oldest surviving European-built structures in Washington.

Today, costumed interpreters, working demonstrations and hands-on programs allow visitors to explore the complicated economic, cultural and agricultural history of the region. Parks Tacoma also acknowledges that the museum operates on the traditional homelands of Coast Salish peoples, who lived on and cared for the land long before the arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Admission to Harvest Home is $17 for adults; $16 for seniors 65 and older and active-duty military members; and $14.50 for children ages 4 through 17. Children younger than 4 are admitted free.

A family ticket covering two adults and as many as five children costs $55. Admission is free for Fort Nisqually museum members.

Fort Nisqually Living History Museum is located at 5519 Five Mile Drive inside Point Defiance Park. Tickets can be purchased in advance through the museum’s website.

For Tacoma families ready to trade the final days of summer for apples, cider and cooler weather, Harvest Home offers a chance to welcome fall about 171 years behind schedule..