The Tilikums of Elttaes were a fraternal, civic organization composed primarily of influential white Seattle area businessmen, who used Native American imagery to promote tourism and the economic development of the city. In July 1911 the Tilikums ("Friends" in Chinook Jargon; Elttaes is Seattle spelled backward) organized the first Golden Potlatch celebration. The Golden Potlatch was a city-wide festival held in July organized by civic boosters hoping to capitalize on the success of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. The event continued for each of the next three summers before being suspended during wartime, and then was started up again as the Potlatch Festival from 1934 to 1941.

The name “Golden Potlatch” appropriates a Chinook Jargon word describing a Native ceremony of celebration and gift giving. It also reflects the importance of the Klondike gold rush to Seattle’s growth. Many organizers and participants in the Golden Potlatch dressed in stereotyped imitations of traditional Native attire, as part of a created Potlatch myth. The appropriation of Native culture in order to market products or events was one common example of discrimination and marginalization faced by Native peoples in the United States.

In this image five businessmen, dressed in redface, sit atop a Wells Fargo and Overland Express stagecoach, representing the Arctic Club during the Golden Potlatch parade. A large crowd can be seen on the sidewalk, watching the parade from in front of the Seward Hotel at Third Avenue and Yesler Way. The Arctic Club, a social club formed by Seattle residents who had struck it rich in the Klondike, was located in the Arctic Building, which still stands at Third Avenue and Cherry Street.

Handwritten on image: Wells Fargo & Overland Express.
Typed on sticker on print: Arctic Club, 3rd & Yesler, Potlach Parade, 1912.
Photographer's number: 11380.