Spokane, Washington, held Sonora Smart Dodd’s first Father’s Day celebration on June 19, 1910.
Dodd proposed the observance after hearing about the newly established Mother’s Day. She wanted to honor her father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran who had raised six children as a widower.
The Spokane celebration took place at the local YMCA and was supported by churches and civic groups. Dodd initially suggested her father’s birthday, June 5, but organizers needed more time, so the observance was moved to the third Sunday of June.
This 1910 event is often described as the beginning of the modern Father’s Day movement in the United States. It should not be confused with a separate 1908 memorial service in Fairmont, West Virginia, which honored fathers who had died in a mining disaster.