Yankee Magazine

Judy Squires met with other members of the Patriotic Exercises committee outside the Colt School at 6:45 a.m. They looked up through the drizzle at glowering skies and made the call to move the ceremony indoors. “Second time in 15 years,” she said.

By the time Chief Marshal Tony Teixeira stepped off at 10:30 near the entrance to the state park, though, bright sunshine was glinting off Bristol Harbor, and the last of the glistening puddles had disappeared along Hope Street and the 2.5-mile-long parade route that ran straight through the heart of town. The climax of the weeks-long Independence Day cele­bration would go off with a big, loud, red-white-and-blue-sky bang. At 227 years and counting—the longest such tradition in the country—nothing was going to rain on Bristol’s parade. See full story.