Arlington’s population had just passed the 50,000 population mark in 1965 when Dortheda “Dottie” Lynn and a few members of Church Women United decided Arlington needed a little Independence Day spirit.
Maybe a parade. Sort of.
They organized a little loop-the-loop around the paths of Randol Mill Park, with roughly 100 kids decorating their bikes with small American flags and red-white-and-blue bunting, many of the bicycles with playing cards in the spokes. This sort of made them sound motorbike-like. Sort of.
If you go
What: Arlington Independence Day Parade
When: 9 a.m.
Find route, parking and shuttle information on the city’s website.
A phenomenon occurred. People showed up for this little event. Lots of them. So much so that kids took a couple of encore park loops. An impromptu kazoo band played a rendition of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” along with a semi-recognizable try at “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Collectively, it was a big thing starting small.
“I knew right away that something bigger could come of this. Should come of this,” Lynn told an Arlington Citizen-Journal reporter back in the 1970s.
Courtesy photo
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Arlington 4th of July Association
And so it did. Very quickly the parade event became a nonprofit association, moved downtown and is now the longest-running event in Arlington. Might well be the biggest July 4 parade in Texas, although a few other Uncle Sams could stake that claim. It’s a 2-mile montage of red-white-and-blue melting pot Americana that begins on the UT-Arlington “South Forty” parking lot, winding its way back north through the college district, looping to City Hall and then south again to the original parking lot.
Ninety minutes, maybe a little more. The crowd is bigger, lots bigger, than the Randol Mill event, now with roughly 100,000 spectators.
Lynn, once a Princeton University secretary for Albert Einstein, chaired the then-new Arlington 4th of July Association for four years, eventually becoming one of the first women City Council members, as well as the namesake for Dottie Lynn Parkway and the Dottie Lynn Recreation Center. She died in 2006. The parade, though, goes on.
The July 4 event will be parade No. 59, or maybe 58.5. The COVID-19 epidemic forced the first-time-ever cancellation of the parade in 2020.
This was a development, current association President Kevin Donovan said, that board members found intolerable.
“We dressed in red, white and blue, met in the South Forty, and at 9 a.m. walked the entire parade route,” Donovan said. “So, technically, we’ve never not had a parade since 1965.”
Courtesy photo
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Arlington 4th of July Association
There have been a couple of near misses. Rain is a rarity, a statistical improbability in this part of Texas on July 4 at the exact time of the parade, but it does happen.
“We delayed one parade a half hour because of lightning proximity and another an hour when we suffered a deluge,” Donovan recalls.
Donovan works in the parking lot staging area at the parade and was present during the deluge year.
“It made a mess of many of the floats,” he said. “The Arlington Conservation Council had created these really ornate, large and colorful paper flowers, which slowly melted down into unrecognizable clumps.”
The parade went on after the rain anyway, the floats soggy and lumpish, the spectators damp but enthusiastic.
Two of the long-standing parade traditions are the naming of a parade marshal and a theme. The theme this year is “Home Run for Heroes.” The parade marshal this time around will be former Major League Baseball Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Ferguson “Fergie” Jenkins, whose more than 3,000 strikeouts and 284 wins make him the top Black pitcher in MLB history.
“We’ll also have a float with the World Series trophy the Rangers won this year, accompanied by an entourage of the Rangers Six Shooters,” said Claudia Perkins, also a board member.
Parade participants historically vary: High school bands and Cub Scouts on bikes. Cheerleaders and drill teams. Moslah drivers of tiny “car-vettes.” Korean veterans, mounted patrols, Sikhs, church groups and even an atheist association.
“I’ve been doing this since 1997, and it’s still a fun thing for me,” Donovan said. “It’s one of the truly community events in Arlington, and really is a melting pot. It’s an event anyone can attend or participate in — no season tickets, no reservations, all free right here in downtown Arlington.”
O.K. Carter is a columnist at the Arlington Report. You may contact him at o.k.carter@arlingtonreport.org.
This article first appeared on Arlington Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
