Easter Fun from Yesteryear: American Legion & Other Egg Hunts

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about some of the fun Easter egg hunts children had nearly a century ago. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

For years American Legion posts sponsored Easter egg hunts across America, and the turnout of children often numbered in the thousands. While the egg hunts were the spotlight event, behind the scenes Legionnaires also visited hospitals and orphanages to make sure no child went eggless or lacked an Easter basket.

In today’s article I review past egg hunts that spread joy for many children, sourced from GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives and the American Legion Monthly magazine.

The 1928 egg hunt at Denver’s Cheesman Park was noted by the Denver Post as a complete mob scene of the “biggest, happiest, most hilarious throng of youngsters most anybody ever had seen.”

As the article reported:

“Thousands of boys and girls swarmed into the park, ran roughshod past the half a hundred policemen detailed to hold them in line, flanked the reserves who were called into action, and ran the party to suit themselves. They had the time of their young lives.

“Lured on by visions of winning the shiny new airplane, Tom Mix’s lariat and dozens of other prizes which were heaped high in the pavilion for the finders of the prize-winning eggs, young Denver put on an egg hunt the like of which never has been seen in this part of the country.

“The egg hunt wasn’t scheduled to start until 2:30 p.m. But hundreds of resourceful youngsters were up with the sun and on the job hours before the appointed time. Policemen calling out to see that nobody “jumped the gun” were overwhelmed.”

The article included several photos of the event.

The photo captions explained:

“The top picture was taken an hour before the time set for the start of the festivities, when the kids really had just begun to congregate at the ropes. (lower pictures): The lad at the left found one of the numbered eggs and took home a real, live bunny. Ruth Duffy, center, is only 23 months old, but she found an egg and was rewarded as the youngest of the lucky hunters. On the right, a wee lad who found only one egg was comforted by Mrs. Cynthia Symes.”

There was another photo included.

The photo caption for this picture explained:

“[This] picture was snapped just after the starter had admonished the boys and girls to ‘Go an’ get ‘em!’ A movie photographer, looking for a mob scene, would have jumped up and down for sheer joy at the sight.”

The Kentucky Post put its coverage of the 1930 egg hunt at Devou Park right on the front page. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people showed up to watch 1,500 children hunt for the eggs! The weather was perfect, and the hills were alive with color (in eggs) and even the littlest of tots engaged in the mad scramble for the winning eggs.

The Lincoln Park Egg Hunt, under the auspices of the West Seattle Post of the American Legion, had its biggest turnout to date in 1930. The Seattle Daily Times featured several photos of the event.

Note on the header image: Pennsylvania children wait for the start of a 1935 Easter egg hunt. Credit: American Legion Monthly, Volume 20, No. 4, April 1936, page 29.

Stay tuned for more Easter egg hunt coverage tomorrow!