The Golden Lions Club and City of Golden will once again throw a fabulous, FREE party in Lions Park (map) today.
Party
The tradition continues as the Golden Lions Club hosts a community celebration in Lions Park on July 4th. The fun begins at noon with free rides for kids, face painting, live music, and a large fireworks display in the evening (weather permitting of course!). The celebration is a day for families, friends and neighbors to get together at the beautiful park on 10th Street to picnic or purchase food and drink and enjoy the festivities.
Raffle and Prizes
In order to be able to provide free rides and music and entertainment, Golden Lions will be selling raffle tickets. Proceeds from ticket sales are used for the most part to fund the event, and any excess goes back into community betterment projects. For $5 each or five tickets for twenty dollars, you get a chance to win one of about 100+ prizes ranging from overnight stays at mountain casinos to the grand prize of $1000 donated by the Lions Club.
Bands:
12:00 – 3:00 p.m.: Rocking Country with Union Gray
3:30 – 6:00 p.m.: Rockabilly with Kerry Pastine and the Crime Scene
6:30 – 9:15 p.m.: Rock and Roll with Something Underground
Fireworks
The City of Golden will put on a fireworks display starting approximately 9:35 p.m., weather permitting. The fireworks can be best viewed from along the creek and the Lions Park Ballfields.
Follow us on Facebook or Twitter @CityofGolden to be the first in the know if a delay or cancellation is required due to wind or other unfavorable conditions. If the fireworks show does have to be canceled, it will be rescheduled at a later time.
History and Air Conditioning
The Golden History Museum will be open today from 10AM-4:30PM. Beat the heat and see the newly renovated galleries.
Historical Footnote:
I wondered how Golden celebrated the 4th of July in the early days of its existence, so I visited the online collection of historic newspapers and located a Colorado Transcript from 1867. I learned that we weren’t celebrating that year, both for reasons of economy and because there were lingering hard feelings from the recent Civil War. Here’s what the Transcript had to say on July 3, 1867:
We regret that there is to be nothing done in our vicinity this Fourth, but there is some reason for this, as the mode of
celebrating our national birthday is generally rather expensive. We hope before many years we shall have both the funds and the spirit to celebrate appropriately. We regret, too, that there is not that degree of harmony throughout our family of States that there ought to be, but hope that before another anniversary, we shall be so “reconstructed,” North and South that we can unite as one people, united in heart and sentiment, as we are technically, in a perpetual Union. Gratulations can then be sent from the North to the South, from the East to the West, over our happy-being, all differences forgotten or buried and harmony dwelling throughout our borders. Such a consummation is devoutly to be wished.
The Golden Transcript (originally called the Colorado Transcript) has been publishing since 1866. The Golden History Museum has been working on digitizing the old issues, and they’re currently up to June of 1948. You’ll find old Transcripts online at coloradohistoricnewspapers.org. You can contribute to the cost of the digitizing project with a donation to the Golden History Museum.
