A 1908 memorial service for a coal-mining disaster is considered the first Father’s Day.

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When Is Father’s Day 2025? History of Father’s Day, ExplainedReader’s Digesthttps://www.rd.com/article/history-of-fathers-day/

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Additional insights we found via Reader’s Digest

1. In 1908, a church in Fairmont, West Virginia, honored 362 men who had been killed in a coal mining explosion the previous year. Share Finding
2. The event was not labeled “Father’s Day,” but it celebrated the fact that many of the deceased men were fathers, leading historians to consider it one of the first public events in the US dedicated to celebrating fatherhood.Share Finding
3. The actual holiday would come a little later, in 1909, when Sonora Smart Dodd, motivated by the attention around recent Mother’s Day celebrations, began campaigning for a Father’s Day holiday.Share Finding
4. Dodd’s hometown, Spokane, Washington, held the first official Father’s Day celebrations on June 19, 1910; newspaper coverage of the event helped spread the holida