Elks Club on their annual New Years Day straw hat parade, 1956. Photos by Bill Lilley, one of their members.

turning south onto 4th Avenue

Elks Club annual straw hat parade on New Year's Day, 1959. File photos courtesy of the Union-Bulletin.

Elks Club straw hat parade, New Years Day 1962. File photos courtesy of the Union-Bulletin.

Rod Esselstyn, a Pendleton musician

Before or after the parade. Names unknown.

Tom Pallis, William Ebbert, Bill King, Averell Fisher

Bill Lilley (1907-1999) was the Union-Bulletin photographer from 1953 to 1972. Photos from private archive courtesy of Jeanne Lilley Savage.

Nellie Lilley (seated on left),  Bill Lilley, and friend boating on Wallowa Lake, August 1955

Wallowa Lake cabin, July 1966



Jim Schick (seated) and Bill in U-B office, November 1955

Straw Hat Day stunt; felt hat tossing contest at Whitman Hotel, May 1955

Elks Club straw hat parade always on January 1st - year after year since 1908. (Part 2)

Straw Hat Days - off with the felts, on with the straws. The Fair Farmerettes determine the winner of the hat toss from the roof of the Whitman Hotel on May 12 1953. File photos courtesy of the Union-Bulletin.

Straw Hat Days was an annual event from at least 1924 through 1956.

1947

Albert Fix store

Tritt's Haberdashery

tion