This weekend Lansdale will be kicking off our celebration of our 150th Founder’s week with a parade for the ages at 5 p.m. on Main Street this Saturday night. Aug. 20.
Done much in the style of the annual Mardi Gras Parade, the 150th Parade will be an event full of floats, marching bands, community groups, and fire trucks all dedicated to helping Lansdale honor our past, and our future, as we continue to adapt to all the changes that time has presented us with.
Lansdale has a long history of celebrating our birthday with a massive parade. For the 50th anniversary of the community in 1922 cars, buggies, and parade goers were wrapped in flowers and flags to celebrate all that the first fifty years had delivered to Lansdale. Consider how much had changed in those first fifty years! When we had been incorporated, we were a small community on a railway on the outskirts of Philadelphia. By 1922 cars had begun to reshape the suburbs and Lansdale had begun to really expand and grow. Only two years prior, the old firehouse on Susquehanna — now the home of Pinnacle Ridge Winery and former home to the Lansdale Reporter — had just been built to meet the needs of a growing community.
And grow it did.
In 1972, for our 100th anniversary, Main Street was packed with people from all over the North Penn area for our first foray into triple digits. As you can imagine, the parade in 1972 reflected the times. Messages of “peace and love” were seen adorning cars while residents and parade goers were dressed in their best bell bottoms. 1972 was a turbulent year for the country — the Cowboys had won the Super Bowl, and let’s not forget about Watergate — but we managed to come together as a community and make sure we celebrated everything that helped make Lansdale such a great place to call home.
This year, I am hoping for our 150th to be just as memorable and to be a true celebration of who we are and who we want to become. Our 150th Parade will go down in Lansdale’s history as one of our biggest moments and I hope all of you can come out and join us for the fun and celebrate what a wonderful place Lansdale is to live, work, and play as we continue to build this community forward together.
Finally, I would like to thank the whole Discover Lansdale and parade organizing team who have spent, literally, years preparing for this event. Each of these volunteers has spent countless hours dedicating themselves to ensuring Lansdale celebrates its birthday in the very best way possible. As a community, we deeply appreciate the hard work each of you has put into making this parade possible. It takes village of dedicated and passionate people to pull off an event this large and Lansdale is a better place because of the passion you have poured into this project.
Thank you for making our birthday special and I look forward to seeing you all at the parade!
(Mayoral Musings is a weekly op-ed column submitted to North Penn Now, courtesy of Lansdale Borough Mayor Garry Herbert. The views expressed are his own.)
See also:
Mayoral Musings: Lansdale Solar Power Program Update
Mayoral Musings: National Night Out Event Scheduled for Tuesday
Mayoral Musings: Let’s Talk About Crime in Lansdale
Mayoral Musings: Honoring ‘Mayor Mike’
Mayoral Musings: Growing the Lansdale Police Department
