Park City’s Miners’ Day celebrations are back after a year off due to COVID-19.
Miners’ Day will be celebrating its 126th year in Park City this coming Monday.
The holiday celebrates Park City’s mining town heritage, and many popular classic events are slated to return to Old Town after last year’s hiatus.
Celebrations begin with breakfast at City Park and the Bark City 5k run kicking off at 8am. The iconic Running of the Balls is scheduled for 10:30am on Main Street, with the Miners’ Day Parade following at 11am. The parade ends in City Park where live entertainment, food trucks, and Park City’s mining history will be on full display until the late afternoon.
The Park City Rotary Club’s Tom Kelly said this year, the traditional mucking and drilling competition will be just a demonstration.
“It isn’t so much the competition that’s important, it’s the demonstration of those things that really are the heritage of this community,” said Kelly. “We will be drilling rock again next Monday, but it will just be in a little different form, and it will start at 12:30 and it will go on till about 2:30-3 o’clock. It will be a number of different demonstrations, so more people can wander over there to take a look.”
Kelly added that last year’s virtual Running of the Balls raised $30,000 for local nonprofits, and Rotary is looking to raise $50,000 this year. Ball prices start at $10 and can be bought the day of the event or online here.
With the return of in-person events, Kelly said there was some discussion on what to bring back, but the Rotary Club ultimately decided to stick to the same program as the last in-person Miners’ Day in 2019.
“We went back and forth at Rotary Club to look at are there some things that we want to maybe stage back in?” he said. “But at the end of the day, it was really about doing what our community likes, and that is having a parade -- an informal parade, not a really formal one -- and it’s fun and it’s funky, and coming on down to City Park and listening to music and having the kids do a sack race and having the food trucks there, so we’re gonna do it just as we did it two years ago.”
Road closures will be in place in Old Town on Monday from 6am to 1pm. Park City Special Events Manager Jenny Diersen asked the public to plan ahead if they are headed to the area.
“Road closures start on Monday morning at 6am, we will have both Park Avenue as well as Main Street noticed, but it is all of Main Street, Park Avenue from 9th to 15th Street, South City Park, the Brew Pub lot, Bob Wells, all Swede Alley surface and Flagpole parking, so just be aware of that,” said Diersen. “If you’re out late on [Sunday] night, please make sure you move your cars in other locations so we can prepare for the festivities.”
Diersen encouraged visitors to utilize Park City Transit or High Valley Transit, which will offer free rides from the Ecker Hill Park-and-Ride, The Sandridge Lots on Marsac Avenue, and Park City High School. Over 100 bike parking spaces have also been installed in the Old Town area.
Paid parking will be available before 1pm at the China Bridge parking garage for $10. Regular rates resume after 1pm.
All of the city’s Miners’ Day transportation information can be found here.
