In 1910, Sonora Louise Smart Dodd of Tacoma, Washington heard a sermon at church on Mother’s Day. She was inspired to honor her own father in a meaningful way. So on June 19, 1910 Spokane celebrated the first Father’s Day, the anniversary of William Jackson Smart’s birthday.
After that first celebration, people turned to Washington, DC to get a national Father’s Day enacted. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge publicly supported plans to nationalize the proposed holiday. It was not until 1966, 48 years after Coolidge’s endorsement that Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Father’s Day to be an official national holiday.
Then in 1972 Richard Nixon finished the holiday creating process by signing into law a permanent U.S. Father’s Day to be observed on the third Sunday of June.
So to all you Dads "Happy Father's Day!"
Share this post