JEFFERSON – Tina Fuller of Jefferson has fond memories of the United States’ Bicentennial back in 1976.
“I remember the feelings,” she said. “I remember the parade. I remember watching things on TV. It was just a sense that everybody had coming together celebrating something so unique and special.”
Now, she hopes that today’s young people will have those same kind of memories when they look back as adults in the future on the Fourth of July Festival for America 250 Ashtabula County being held July 4 in Jefferson.
“My goal is that 50 years from now, my grandchildren will look back on this and say, ‘I remember,’” she said.
Fuller, one of the festival organizers and a member of the America 250 Ashtabula County Committee, is looking forward to the big celebration.
“I’m very excited about it,” she said. “I think a lot of people have donated and given a lot of time to it and they’re excited to celebrate our country. It’s going to be a very fun day.”
The celebration starts with a bell ringing across the county starting at 11:45 a.m.
“We’re asking all the churches across the county to ring their bells 13 times,” Fuller said of the bell ringing in honor of the 13 Colonies. The churches are asked to make one strike per minute for 13 minutes.
Afterwards, the Grand Parade of History steps off at noon in Jefferson. It starts at Jefferson Area High School and goes down Poplar Street and Jefferson Street and then to the festival grounds at Giddings Park in Jefferson.
“We’re asking everybody to decorate their entries in red, white and blue,” Fuller said. “We’re hoping it will have a ticker-tape feel to it.”
Currently, there are 55 entries with more than 500 people involved. There will be horses, unicycles, the Jefferson Area High School Marching Band, the Erie Heights Brass Ensemble, marchers, military vehicles, service organizations and more.
“This is going to be a large parade,” Fuller said. “It’s the kickoff and highlight to celebrate 250 years of history.”
She is thrilled by the amount of parade participants.
“I’m excited. The goal was 250 for 250 years, so to have 500 people, I’m pretty excited,” she said.
After the parade, opening ceremonies and a flag raising will be held at 1:30 p.m. at the Liberty Picnic Grounds at Giddings Park.
At 2 p.m., entertainment will start on the live stages.
Musical performers; re-enactors; Broadway performer E. Mani Cadet; two actors from Women in History bringing to life Ella Fitzgerald and Lucy Stanton Day; and others will appear on the live stage and throughout the festival grounds. Cadet will also be an emcee.
Also, the Ashtabula All-County Band will perform at 2 p.m. on the Liberty Picnic Grounds stage.
That’s not all.
A Walk of Time area will be in the Giddings Park area featuring a walk in Ashtabula County history. It will be divided into five portals of time from history.
“The Walk of Time is going to be very interesting,” Fuller said, noting it will go from 1776 up to the present time and will feature several historical associations.
Stump speeches by re-enactors of such historical figures as President Garfield and Martin Luther King will be featured in the Walk of Time area.
In addition, the Joshua Giddings Law Office will be open.
There will also be two Model T cars (one of which was touched by Henry Ford) as well as the Ducro hearse in the Walk of Time area.
The Walk of Time will allow people to get their 250th commemorative program stamped as a keepsake. “It’s an embossed stamp and it will go inside the magazine,” Fuller commented.
A Family Americana Arcade will be set up in the green space at the corner of Market and Jefferson streets across from the fire department in Jefferson.
The games and contests there will be free.
Put-put, henna tattoos, face painting and skee ball will be among the activities. Contests will include such competitions as pie eating, a sack race, hay bale toss and watermelon eating.
Jungle Terry will also be on hand with a show and two bounce houses will be in the arcade as well.
“We wanted an old-fashioned family time,” Fuller said. “And we didn’t want to charge anybody, it had to be free, just a celebration.”
The goal was to make people feel like they are doing something special and have gone back in time, she noted.
There will be 31 different artisans and crafters in The Artisan Market in the Giddings Park area, on the corner of Jefferson and Market streets by the Methodist Church.
Also, the Jefferson Depot will be open from noon until 6 p.m. with Early America Live, a presentation/show about 1890s/early 1900s history.
Also on the Depot grounds, there will be stump speeches and re-enactors. There will be music in the church on the Depot grounds and on the Depot bandstand. In the Depot visitor center, there will be a viewing twice of the Ashtabula Train Disaster movie, once at 3 p.m. and then at 6 p.m.
Whispery Pines, a farm, will have horse-drawn wagon rides from 2-6 p.m. starting at the Walk of Time and going through the Depot grounds and then around Walnut Street and to the Jefferson Milling Company on Jefferson Street, which will be open for tours from 2-6 p.m. The wagon ride will end back at the Walk of Time.
Fireworks will end the day starting at 10 p.m. with a brass band playing along. They will be set off at Memorial Field and can be viewed from the Liberty Picnic Grounds at Giddings Park.
There will be food trucks, a beer garden and a wine tent featuring four local wineries: Ferrante, Maple Ridge, Day Dream Farm Winery and The Winery at Spring Hill.
The Lift Bridge Community Association will have the beer tent with Cloven Hoof Brewing on hand with a special craft brew for the 250th. Dark Room Brewing Co. will also be in the beer garden.
Both the beer garden and the wine tent will start at 2 p.m. and be open until 9 p.m.
There will be free parking at the Ashtabula County Fairgrounds with a free shuttle by Sunset Transportation.
