Vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator Will Rogers was one of the most famous Americans of the 20th Century. Over his career, he visited Tacoma three times, including days before his tragic death.
“The Cherokee Kid” on Stage
William Penn Adair Rogers, “Oklahoma’s Favorite Son,” was born on a ranch in 1879 near Oologah, Oklahoma. The youngest of eight children, both his parents were part Cherokee. Proud of his heritage, Rogers’ earliest stage name was the “Cherokee Kid.” He would often joke to audiences that his ancestors hadn’t arrived on the Mayflower but met the boat.https://www.heritagebanknw.com/home/home
After attending boarding and military schools, Rogers became a cowboy. But life on the ranch was not for him. He started performing in Wild West shows, performing lasso tricks, and traveling to South America and South Africa. Back in the United States, he joined the vaudeville circuit.
“The Lariat King” in Tacoma, 1908
Rogers’s vaudeville company played at Tacoma’s Grand Theater (later Music Box Theatre, 902 Broadway Street) in 1908, July 13 through 18. Billed as the “Lariat King,” Rogers was one of the group’s main attractions. A lariat is a rope used as a lasso.
“He fairly makes the lasso a living thing,” wrote the News Tribune on July 14, “seemingly causing it to tie knots in itself without any effort on his part, circling it at will about the heads of the horse [Teddy] and rider [“Buck” McKee] that assist him, skipping through the whirling circles of rope, and doing other remarkable feats.”
Rogers told reporters about his overseas travels and his homesickness. “Because I couldn’t hold a job anywhere else, I went on the stage,” he told the Daily Ledger.
On the company’s last Friday in Tacoma, actors and performers at the Grand and Pantages faced off at a baseball game at Athletic Field. Playing first base, the Ledger praised Rogers for playing “a good game at first and hit the ball hard.” McKee was the umpire, riding Teddy. Pantages won 15 to 8. Five hundred people attended.
Star Returns to Tacoma, 1927
Rogers returned home that year to marry Betty Blake. His career skyrocketed. He joined the Ziegfeld Follies in New York City before moving to California for the movies. In total, he acted in 50 silent and 21 sound films.
The humorist became known for his witticisms, folksy sense of humor and political commentary. From 1922 to 1929, he toured the United States, giving lectures.
He visited Tacoma on Monday, March 21, 1927. Initially, he was scheduled to arrive by the morning train. Plans to give him a city tour and lunch at Longmire were abandoned after Rogers was delayed.
Rogers arrived at Lakewood’s Miller-Harkins Airport at 2 p.m. in a two-seater plane flown by Tex Rankin. A delegation of top-hatted local mayors greeted the comedian. Also among the party was Henry Sicade (1866-1938). A Puyallup leader and educational advocate, he greeted Rogers in the Lushootseed language. Briefly taken aback, Rogers replied in Cherokee. The two then shook hands and laughed.
The party was driven to Camp Lewis. The camp band played as he met with military officers and the cast and crew of the “Patent Leather Kid,” currently being filmed on base. Rogers visited patients at American Lake Veterans Hospital.
The YMCA’s Men’s Club, which also sponsored the program, hosted Rogers for dinner at Hotel Winthrop. Special guests included General Robert Alexander, commander of Camp Lewis, and Richard Barthelmess, “Patent Leather Kid” star.
One thousand two hundred packed the First Baptist Church (902 Market Street) at 8:15 p.m. for the evening program. A ticketed event, Rogers was introduced by Mayor Melvin Tennent.
Sitting on a piano bench and chewing gum, Rogers went from subject to subject. From Tacoma’s mayors and American tourists to traffic signals and international politics, nothing escaped his wit. “There wasn’t anything connected about it,” wrote C.B. Maybin for the Tacoma News Tribune, “He just flitted from one subject to another and back again, cracking one wisecrack after another until everybody’s laughing mechanism was sore from over-exercising.”
Rogers promised to return, joking that he would have all new jokes every time Congress met.
Final Visit to Tacoma
His career continued, extending to radio and in regular newspaper columns. Rogers visited Tacoma for the final time in 1935 with a short overnight stop. Charles Rough remembered the visit on August 5, 1974, TNT letter to the editor. Sicade met with Rogers, telling Rough that the two had worked as cowboys together for a year and were friends. His grief would be great.
A few days later Rogers left from Lake Washington in a float plane flown by famous one-eyed aviator Wiley Post. The two toured Alaska. On August 15, their aircraft crashed near Barrow, killing both.
The nation was in shock. “The country can hardly afford to lose Will Rogers,” the Tacoma Daily Ledger wrote. His entertaining wit had made people think deeply about current events.
Rogers’ films were still playing in theaters months after his death. The Chamber of Commerce organized donations to the Will Rogers Memorial Fund, which built the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Oklahoma in 1938.
In 2020, the Cherokee Nation purchased the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch, opening it as a free museum. His ranch at Will Rogers State Historic Park in California was destroyed by the Palisades Fire on January 8, 2025.
From humble beginnings, Will Rogers made his mark on early 20th-century America with his folksy charm and wit. Gone too soon, people have not forgotten him. Many, like my grandfather decades later, still rued the day that Rogers stepped onto that plane, never to return.