Although Sousa's 1929 Foshay Tower Washington Memorial March has been dubbed as his "mystery march," the Sousa march most steeped in mystery is an earlier effort, The Occidental. Composed in 1887 when Sousa was at the helm of the U.S. Marine Band, The Occidental did not appear in print until 1891—near the end of his tenure with the Marine Band, and after his name was established with the success of The Washington Post March. There is no mention of The Occidental among Sousa's journals and letters, and neither the published edition nor the copyright deposit manuscript filed with the Library of Congress bears a dedication. So it is likely we will never know what The Occidental was written for, or why it bears such a strange title.

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