A grand parade like few Peorians have ever seen was the opening spectacle of a four-day Peoria County centennial extravaganza. An estimated 150,000 people lined the streets on Sept. 29, 1925, to watch a line of floats stretching some six miles long. For perspective, the city then was just about to hit a population of 100,000.

Peoria’s two leading newspapers of the time both covered the events in depth. The Evening Star even published a special 100-page centennial edition ahead of the parade, commemorating the county’s birthday. It was filled with stories of the county’s most notable people, events, businesses, institutions, and achievements over the previous century.

‘Greatest spectacle of floats’

More than 100 police officers and 30 firefighters were dispatched to manage traffic and parking on and around the parade route. The city’s grocery and butcher stores closed at noon in preparation.

It was a balmy, clear-skied night lit by a harvest moon. The procession of 260 floats kicked off at 7 p.m. atop the Main Street hill. Over the course of the next three hours, the parade wound its way through several downtown Peoria streets, then south along Adams Street to Cedar Street (now MacArthur Highway). The parade then made a U-turn and headed back up Adams. The floats passed a reviewing stand set up on the Adams Street side of the courthouse before finishing up at Fayette.

The Star gushed with flowery prose, saying the parade was “a brilliant rainbow with the chariots of all the gods of Olympus in a procession crossing its iridescent pathway.”

The Peoria Journal reported it took about 65 minutes for the parade to pass a given point.

The float contest was divided up into city and county divisions. The first prize of $50 for city floats went to the Daughters of Isabella, who built a large float depicting Christopher Columbus before the throne of Queen Isabella of Spain upon his return from America. The $50 county purse was awarded to the Chillicothe public schools and their large float representing the three R’s — reading, writing and arithmetic.

The judges were a Mrs. Roland Woodward, Frank Emerson of Hewitt and Emerson Architects, and Peoria Art Institute director James E. McBurney. Their decisions were unanimous.

The Peoria Journal’s editorial board said it was the unification of city and county in the parade that made the night something special.

“Without question the presence of the county floats and county representation did more to make this city appreciate the importance of the county outside the city limits than anything else that could have occurred. A new conception of Greater Peoria was fostered by the event,” the editorial board wrote.

U.S. Sen. Charles S. Deneen gave a keynote address to the assembled downtown crowd at the courthouse after the parade.

By all reports, every hotel in Peoria was packed, and the restaurants were so busy that many ran out of food and were forced to close early.

“From the big crowd that turned out, one gathers that birthdays are still popular,” quipped a Journal reporter.

Greater Peoria pageantry

The rest of the County celebration was tied into the closing three days of the nine-day Greater Peoria County Exposition and National Swine Show.

An elaborate two-hour performance, the “Pageant of Peoria,” summarized the county’s history to date with “colorful, artistic pageantry filled with action,” was originally scheduled over three nights at the fairgrounds, but the first evening was rained out. The Friday and Saturday performances were each closed out with a “brilliant” fireworks display.

The exposition also featured three days of horse and automobile racing, livestock and dog shows, band concerts, vaudeville acts and various booths.

Big birthday cake

A “cake large enough to serve a regiment” was also baked up for Peoria County’s centennial by a Mr. Zickgraff, owner and manager of the Bake-Rite Bakery in the 200 block of Main Street in downtown Peoria.

The cake was displayed in the window of the bakery through the centennial celebration, and a free slice was given out to everyone who entered Bake-Rite on Oct. 2, after the festivities wrapped up.

The Peoria Star cautioned centennial revelers to “bite lightly” as they sampled the confection, as Zickgraff had hidden real gold within the cake’s layers.

“You might need the gold to buy a new tooth,” the paper wrote.

Celebrating the big 200th

Peoria County is celebrating its bicentennial a little differently than how they did things in 1925, but no less boldly. This year is a countywide “bisontennial.” Local artists, schools, and businesses are decorating the large fiberglass bison you might have heard about for our countywide community art project. You’ll start to see more of the herd out and about around the county starting this month.

There’s a lot more planned in the lead-up to our birthday party this October. We won’t spoil the surprise just yet, but you can go to the Peoria County website for all the latest updates.