Parades During the Boom Period
I. Types of parades today
A. Holidays – Memorial Day, 4th of
July, Veterans Day
B. Special Events – HS UNK Homecoming, city anniversaries
II. Parades During the Boom and on
into the 1890’s
Newspapers reported crowds of thousands – 8-10,000
People watched from 2nd floor and
roofs of buildings.
A. Holidays:
Memorial Day - May 30, 1892
Informal parade in morning of people in carriages to the cemetery to
decorate graves of old soldiers
1:30 p.m. parade
City police
GAR firing squad
Sons of Veterans
Midway Band
Carriages of city officials & clergy
500 school children
Theo. Miller’s band
National Guard
Industrial school band
GAR posts & old soldiers
Prof. Draper’s two bands
Knights of Pythias
Brigade of ladies on horseback
Started between 18th & 19th St. on Central about North to 21st
East to Ave A
North to 25th
West to Central
South on Central to the Opera House where program of the day was held
4th of July
July 4, 1890 –
People gathered downtown in windows
and on the street at 10 a.m. to watch the parade.
Nothing happened.
Finally at noon people gathered at
Kearney Lake near the pavilion for picnics and an afternoon program.
July 4, 1893 – best 4th of July parade ever
10 a.m.
Midway Military band
Statue of Liberty float surrounded by 44 little girls representing the
44 states
National Guard
City officials
Speakers of the day
Union Sunday school
Members of Ancient Order of United Workmen
the first fraternal group to offer death benefit life insurance to its
members
Modern Woodmen in straw hats
Miller’s band
Hook & ladder trucks, hose carts, & members of fire department
Floats by businesses
Over a mile long ending at high school park
Labor Day – Kearney had several unions during the Boom so Labor Day
parades were big
Sept. 2, 1889 -
Started with parade Marshals
Kearney Military Band
City police in uniform
Carriages of clergy & city council
Fire department in uniform
25 Kearney Typographical Union – dusters, straw hats & canes
Lady members in carriages
Enterprise wagon with printing press
display
50 Bricklayers Union – overalls, white shirt, necktie, red, white, blue
sash, straw hat
Wagon with two bricklayers laying
brick
Lathers Union & Plasterer’s Union – carrying their tools
50 Carpenters & Joiners Union – red striped aprons
Wagon with carpenters bench and 3-4
working
40 Knights of Labor
50 Dick Hibbard’s brick makers – black pant, hats & neckties, white
shirts
Two carriages carrying members of cotton mill committee with banner
“The Contract is Signed for the Cotton Mill”
Carriage of Troy laundry employees and washing machinery
Kearney stone Works (Stonecutters Union)
represented by wagon pulled by 4 horses carrying block of Colorado red
stone
Kearney Broom factory wagon
Few members of Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers who had worked for
the B & M
Railroad before the strike, now working at other Kearney businesses
Weaver & Bond’s Meat Market wagon with butcher shop replica
Brownell’s ice cream parlor wagon with freezer
Ayers, an agricultural dealer with elevated hay stacker on which a drum
corps was seated
They played occasionally as they
proceeded down the street.
Woods, photographer, taking picture of a little girl
Phillips & Co., plumbers – wagon of appropriate equipment
Geo. Ellis, plumber, with heating & patent bath
Hooley’s bakery wagon
Brunswick wagon bakery with cooks in hotel kitchen
Cook’s Cigar store with cigar maker working in back of wagon
Cigar makers Union in carriages
5 more businesses with decorated wagons
Clarks Baseball club & Kearney baseball club in uniforms
Industrial school cadets & 14-member band
100 boys &girls with red, white, blue sashes in Kearney Band of Hope
Singer Sewing Machine co. with man using machine in the wagon
3 Coddington Grocery Store wagons
Boston Shoe Store
Sizer’s Coal wagon
Miller & Bradford tinners with man making tin dippers which were thrown
out into the crowd
Chase & Kuhn, clothiers
C. H. George, grocer
Nebraska Washing Machines displayed on a wagon
City scavenger’s patent pumping machines
H. J. Mack’s agricultural equipment
Party of merchants in old stage coach
Good Luck Grocery Store decorated wagon
C. H. Miller hardware
Stein’s miniature display wagon of boots and shoes pulled by 2 goats
Parade route: Form on high school grounds at 2 p.m.
23rd to 1st Ave
1st South to 18th (the railroad)
18th to Central
Central to 25th
25th to Ave A
Ave A to 23rd
23rd to Ave B
Ave B south to rink where speakers would give their speeches. No Opera
House yet
Sept 1, 1890 – Successful Labor Day parade assembled at the court
house, ended at the high school grounds.
Was a mile long.
Displays by unions and businesses.
No civic societies.
Sept. 7. 1891 – another Labor Day parade like last year but slightly
shorter.
B. Military (no Veterans Day yet)
1888 – Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, held in Kearney
Three parades marched down Wyoming
(Central) Avenue,
Largest featured 3,000 regular army
troops,
3,000 men of
military and civic organizations
22 bands.
C. Special Events
County Fair
Sept. 21, 1889 – Successful county fair ended wit4h a parade of fair
officials, union band, prize winning horses and cattle.
Oct. 4, 1892 – Co. fair parade again of cattle and horses
Circus
Miriam Worlock, daughter if A. T. Anderson:
Father prospered as a photographer
from a small studio south of the
tracks he moved to an upstairs location on Central Avenue north of 21st
Street.
When a circus came to town eight
little girls, aged four and upward, of our Kenwood neighborhood gathered in
the studio.
From there we were invited into Dr.
Morrow's dental offices which had two large windows overlooking the parade -
elephants setting down their big round flat feet in our very own dust, and
striped tigers yawning lazily in bright blue carriages.
After all the wonders, capped by the
calliope, had passed, we went back to the studio and Father gave us ice
cream under the skylight
Dr. Raasch: hoopla and pageantry of the parade down Central Avenue,
with the steam calliope bringing up the rear. As Dr. Raasch explained, "It
was at the end of the parade because after it had passed everyone was full
of smoke and cinders."
June 16, 1890 - Two circuses coming to Kearney on June 30. Their two
parades to combine as one with four parts.
[apparently it happened but was not reported after the fact]
July 29, 1890 – Circus with parade. Good program but small crowd
because of little advertising.
Sept. 28, 1892 – school was canceled for a parade and circus –
Ringling Bros. Parade included elephants and camels
June 16, 1893 – Circus parade
Race horses
Troupes in costume in chariots and donkey carts
3 bands & calliope
Open “dens” of tigers, lions, hyenas, leopards and snakes
Groups of camels
2 elephants
Mrs. Archibald went to see the parade leaving the house empty but locked.
9-year old son came home and crawled in the window. Mother, returning home,
saw the open window and called the police. When they entered the house the
son thought they were tramps and hid in the basement. Then he tried to sneak
out and make a run for it but police, having surrounded the house, gave
chase until mother recognized her son and “explained the whole thing” and
they all had a good laugh
Political
Highlighted by torch light parades
Culminated in long speeches by aspiring candidates
Political campaign of 1890 - Farmer's Alliance announced they would
have a parade and political picnic in Kearney, which was then "the real
Metropolis of the Big Third district."
Will M. Maupin, later gained considerable recognition as writer and
politician, wrote
"Will any one of us who saw that parade ever forget it? ... there were
hundreds (of wagons), yes, thousands.
About every tenth wagon was covered with cottonwood boughs and party
mottoes, and aboard a cottage organ and a bunch of vocalists singing…
Long after the first wagon had reached the picnic grounds, those durned
wagons were still coming over the top of the hill on Central Avenue.”
D. Impromptu
Traveling entertainment shows
Esp. minstrel shows.
A way of advertising
Bicycle lantern
Nov 27, 1892 – Evening bicycle lantern parade of the city starting at
21st & Central tomorrow
Hecht
Dec. 1, 1890 – Parade of workers marking completion of Hecht’s meat
packing plant. To butcher hogs
III. Later Parades of note
Halloween, 1922
The Kearney Retailers tried to corral wayward
spirits by holding a day-long Halloween celebration.
The crowd estimated at 12,000 at the morning parade and 15,000 at night.
Morning – a goat parade,
"147 goats, each in costume…
accompanied by his or her retinue of
herders ...
their
costumes were even more ludicrous than the goats."
Night parade – Halloween lighting scheme gave a "weird and most
appropriate touch of color".
The floats and "scores of
masked revelers moved up and down the parade area for over an hour.
Then the street was turned over to those in costume who made merry in
Halloween fashion.
That show, once under way, nothing could check it until the orchestras at
the various dances struck up 'Home Sweet Home'."
Eleanor Nelson Horner of College Station, Texas, writes of her chief
impression of the Goat Parade.
"Dr. (L.T.) Sidwell, Superintendent of the T.B. Hospital, who was about as
wide as he was tall, wore a harem dancing girl's costume, full baggy pants,
bra top, and the veil covering nose and mouth and hanging to his shoulders.
He danced a sort of seductive dance, gliding up to some man on the sidewalk
and either tried to kiss him or give him a bump. People laughed until they
cried he was so funny."
City Anniversaries
50th in 1923
The floats – several powered by automobiles
and showing off modern technology and products – reflect a city that is
moving towards modernization
Delco Light Products - The float depicts a woman in 1923 with all the
conveniences of electric lights, running water, and electrical appliances.
The woman in 1873 has none of those luxuries. Ironically, the float is built
on a wagon bed and pulled by horses rather than powered by a modern
automobile.
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