As visitors walk down a ramp to enter the “Park City Loves a Parade” exhibit, they may feel like they’re participating in one of the town's famous parades.
Band music plays, the walls are covered with large photos of crowds watching a procession and a decorated firetruck sits just ahead.
Curator of Collections and Exhibits Courtney Titus said the exhibit is two and a half years in the making. Museums across the country have been preparing displays to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a showcase exploring the roots and outcomes of the American Revolution, while the Smithsonian Institution is hosting an exhibit called “Our Shared Future: 250,” which asks Americans to commit to advancing democracy and preserving the future of the U.S.
Titus said the Park City Museum was eager to participate in the national celebration, but wanted to tie it into local themes. Titus and the exhibit team — including Dalton Gackle, Morgan Pierce and Sophie Krupp — landed on Park City parades, processions and protests from past to present.
“We decided to go with the idea of the community coming together to support each other in times of joy, in times of sadness, in times of anger, indignation, no matter what is going on,” she said. “A theme that we found in our research was Parkites coming together to support each other.”
After the parade walk, visitors are greeted by a sculpture called “The Frog Prince.” It’s a remake of the parade float of the same name by artist Zafod Beetlebrocks. Titus said anyone who’s been to the Fourth of July parade on Park City’s Main Street would recognize the green metal frog with purple lips wearing glasses and a gold crown.
The celebration section also features other Park City traditions, including the Howl-o-ween dog parade, the Olympic homecoming parade and the Labor Day parade, which locals call Miners Day.
The exhibit also features parades from Park City’s history. For example, Parkites held a spontaneous parade after learning World War I had ended.
“We tell the story of Victor Peterson, who was in the Navy, and he was on leave, came home to Park City, and that's when everybody found out the news,” Titus said. “So they hoisted him up on people's shoulders and paraded him down the streets.”
Visitors can then move on to the section focused on moments of community mourning. Its displays describe the Daley West Mine disaster, where the entire town mourned together.
“There were funeral processions all day long for the miners who died in that explosion,” Titus said.
The town comes together to mourn national tragedies as well, including a procession after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The exhibit also recreates the Glenwood Cemetery entrance and features funerary objects from the museum’s collection, including casket ornaments and mourning brooches.
Finally, visitors can see how Parkites have come together to stand up for what they believe in. For example, the exhibit describes how locals protested when Vail Resorts applied to trademark the name “Park City” in 2016, and how locals, Sundance Film Festival attendees and other Utahns protested the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
“We talk about not just protests, but also strikes,” Titus said. “Going back to our mining days, there were strikes that happened between the mine workers and the mine companies fighting for better working conditions, better pay.”
The exhibit also includes more recent strikes and protests, like the 2025 Park City Mountain Ski Patrol Strike.
Titus said she hopes locals and visitors will visit the exhibit to learn more about Park City’s history, but also to feel a sense of belonging and community.
“Even if people don't always agree, even if there are divisions, if people can find a way to come together and support each other, that'll get us through,” she said.
The exhibit will be open until March 2027. Titus said Spanish translations of the exhibit descriptions will soon be available as well.
