Biography
Wesley Everest was an IWW Wobbly, lumber worker, and World War I infantry veteran. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1919, American Legion marchers attacked the Centralia, Washington IWW union hall. Everest was inside; in the resulting gunfight four Legionnaires were killed. Everest fled, was captured, and was held in the Centralia city jail. That night a mob took him from the jail, castrated him in the back of a car en route to the Chehalis River, and hanged him from the Mellen Street railroad bridge. The mob then fired on the body. The official coroner's verdict was that Everest "jumped from the bridge with a rope around his neck" — no one was ever prosecuted for his murder. Everest's body was buried by IWW prisoners (the Centralia 8) in an unmarked grave.
