Cheering and chanting “USA,” tens of thousands of locals and visitors gathered along Park City’s Main Street for the town’s annual Fourth of July parade.
John Bouniconti and his family make the trip from their home in Colorado every year. He said it's a family tradition.
“We just love everything about the parade, especially the flyovers. Our favorite part that really just sets the tone for the rest of the parade, and the crowd here is always just big high energy.”
The parade is a hot-ticket item for participants and spectators — many line Old Town’s sidewalks with chairs and blankets hours before the start. Bouniconti said they set up their chairs around 8:30 Saturday morning, about two and a half hours before the parade began.
“And it's about 95% full, so we kind of got lucky and finding a spot right here,” he said.
Executive Director of the Park Silly Sunday Market Kate McChesney organizes the parade each year. This year, nearly 80 floats decked out in red, white and blue marched down the street. McChesney said they keep it local.
“We always have other floats from other areas, but they're not accepted into our parade,” she said. “Otherwise, our parade would be humongous.”
Local floats included the Park City High School Marching Band, the Salt Lake SCOTS Bagpipes and a Mariachi Band.
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the procession was led by one of the oldest American flags in the nation.
“We have Utah's bicentennial flag joining us with the color guard and the honor guard,” she said.
Lisa Coltman is the keeper of the flag which has found its way back to Utah from Pasadena, California. The flag was manufactured by the Zion’s Co-operative Mercantile Institution in 1896 for Utah’s statehood celebration. The wool, sourced from Heber and Park City, is now faded with small rips along the edges and its 45 stars.
Coltman said the flag’s former owner, Brett Koehler, drove the flag from California on March 26.
“And I’m like, ‘Okay, where is this? How am I going to put this together?’ And went to see a vexillologist, which is a flag specialist,” she said. “When he looked at it under, you know, special scope, and then he could see the fibers, and found that the wool is from Utah, it has the date on it.”
Coltman said the roughly 9-by-13-foot flag is too fragile to fly, so she and a group of friends attached it to a wheeled wooden frame to roll down Main Street.
“This thing is really big, and we wanted to fly it but I said ‘there's no way,’ see how fragile,” she said.
The thin fabric, almost see-through after more than a century, couldn’t be pulled too tight as the team worked to assemble the display.
She said there are only six known flags from the same era, including a smaller, sister flag in Heber that is under the care of the Wasatch County Daughters of Pioneers Museum.
After the Fourth, the flag will be taken to a restoration facility.
“We do not want it put away, so we are looking, and I would love to know if anyone has ideas and can help me weave together where this goes and how to honor it coming home,” Coltman said.
Coltman said those who'd like to help honor the flag can email her at lisa@parkcitylighthouse.com.
