How did Centre County celebrate the US bicentennial? Browse the CDT archives
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- Archive CDT newspapers show how Centre County celebrated the U.S. bicentennial in 1976.
- Highlights included new art displays and a full slate of festivities in Bellefonte.
- The Bicentennial Wagon Train camped near Beaver Stadium and included a local host wagon.
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Though a lot has changed over the past 50 years, Centre County still knows how to celebrate a milestone holiday.
Communities across the United States will gather this weekend to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Fourth of July festivities across the nation will likely rival some of the holiday’s most notable celebrations since the famed bicentennial in 1976.
Independence Day festivities have changed a great deal in Centre County, where organizations like the Central PA 4th Fest now oversee some of the biggest celebrations. However, a quick trip through the Centre Daily Times’ archives shows State College, Bellefonte and beyond still knew how to throw a party 50 years ago.
Here’s a look at how some of the many communities across Centre County celebrated the U.S. bicentennial in 1976 — and how it was covered by the Centre Daily Times.
Carnivals, parades and more
Perhaps the largest bicentennial celebration in Centre County occurred in Bellefonte, where community members used the milestone holiday to dedicate a new Victorian-style gazebo at Talleyrand Park. The dedication kicked off a week-long bicentennial celebration in the county seat.
Other festivities planned for Bellefonte’s bicentennial celebration included presentations highlighting the area’s history since the mid-1700s, colonial-style games staged in Talleyrand Park, a colonial-style buffet and hands-on demonstrations by the Nittany Antique Machinery Association. Bellefonte’s Logan Fire Company held its annual carnival on July 3 and concluded the night of family fun with a giant fireworks display at Bellefonte’s middle school.
The U.S. Army Parachute Team, perhaps better known as the Golden Knights, offered a free show at which members “passed” a baton 2 miles above land before presenting it to Bellefonte Mayor Neil Wiggin. The group also supervised a jet flyover.
Earlier that week, the Logan Fire Company held what the Centre Daily Times called “the biggest and perhaps longest” Fourth of July parade in its history. The June 30 parade, boasting roughly 212 units, stretched from the Bellefonte Elementary School to the Bellefonte Area Middle School with stops at Talleyrand Park and other downtown hubs. Parade participants included Bellefonte’s high school marching band, representatives from the U.S. Marine Color Guard, Miss Central Pennsylvania and representatives from other county school districts, fire departments and other municipal units.
Elsewhere, communities in State College, Millheim, Howard and beyond celebrated the bicentennial with festivals of their own. Concerts on the Fourth of July helped ring in the occasion after officials literally rang a replica Liberty Bell in Howard’s West End Park before reading the Declaration of Independence, organizing games and contests and hosting a bonfire for the community.
Those heading to Sunday service at Gray’s Church in Port Matilda likely spotted pastors dressed in revolutionary-era costumes riding to the church on horseback. The day’s services there emulated a typical church service in 1776 before welcoming the community to a picnic.
State College residents can still spot a piece of bicentennial history along South Allen Street in the form of a stainless steel eagle. The sculpture was the winning proposal of a 1976 contest sponsored by State College’s bicentennial committee, which unveiled the winner at the closing ceremony of the 10th annual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts that summer.
The sculpture, proposed by then-associate professor of art Edward A. Adams, was one of three semi-finalists selected out of 28 entries by famed mid-century modern sculptor Roy Gussow. The sculpture cost roughly $23,000 to construct and was funded by the bicentennial committee.
According to the Centre Daily Times’ July 19 issue, Adams said a passage from the Bible’s book of Isaiah inspired the sculpture, which sought to highlight “faith in man and in God” — a core part of American heritage, he said.
“This passage was a source of inspiration for the sculpture,” Adams said. “It is appropriate, I believe, as a theme and as a bicentennial vision for the future of our nation: ‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.’”
The eagle sculpture once sat on the southwest corner of East Beaver Avenue and South Allen Street on Schlow Library’s grounds. Today, you can find it along South Allen Street just outside the library and State College’s municipal building.
Hitting the road
Some of the area’s bicentennial celebrations stretched past Centre County’s borders.
The famed Bicentennial Wagon Train passed through Centre County in June and spent a night camping near Beaver Stadium. The cross-country event saw five trains comprised by hundreds of covered wagons embark in June 1975 before ultimately converging at Valley Forge, the site of the Continental Army’s winter encampment in late 1777 and early 1778. There, President Gerald Ford officially designated Valley Forge as a national historic site in honor of the bicentennial.
A “host” wagon built by Centre County vocational technical school students followed a national “host” wagon from Minnesota when the train visited the State College area. Some locals, including those from Milesburg and State College, traveled with the train as it moved across Pennsylvania and even helped make some repairs along the way.
Elsewhere, members of Bellefonte’s high school marching band visited Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia on Saturday, July 3, to participate in bicentennial parades. Penns Valley’s high school marching band visited the White House a week earlier to perform on the ellipse of the President’s Park, representing Centre County as one of the 160 student musical groups from across the U.S. performing there throughout the summer.
Blowing out the candles
The bicentennial featured celebrations for all sorts of Centre County birthdays.
Up first was Shannon Marie Shoemaker, born at the Centre Community Hospital at 1:33 p.m. to Mr. and Mrs. John M. Shoemaker of Bellefonte. The baby, weighing 8 pounds and 1 ounce, was the 1976’s only Fourth of July baby in Centre County, the Centre Daily Times reported on July 6.
Hospitals in nearby Lewistown, Lock Haven and Tyrone did not report any additional Centre County births on the bicentennial. One baby boy delivered at Philipsburg State General Hospital arrived at 12:28 a.m. on July 5, missing the historic birthdate by a mere half-hour.
The newborn Shoemaker’s parents received a specially designed birth registration notice and a commemorative Pennsylvania bicentennial medal following their daughter’s birth. A folio presented to the couple included signatures from Gov. Milton Shapp and Lt. Gov. Ernest Kline, who chaired the bicentennial committee.
Anyone celebrating Fourth of July birthdays in Centre Region was invited to join the State College Bicentennial Committee and the Centre Region Department of Parks and Recreation at a special birthday party held in their honor. The unique event drew roughly 40 guests, including 17 of whom were celebrating a July 4 birthday.
The milestone birthday party began with a bus ride through State College for invited guests and their companions, who were mostly children. Refreshments and live music followed at Holmes-Foster Park.
Extra, extra!
Outside its daily coverage of county happenings, the Centre Daily Times celebrated the bicentennial with special editions and spreads around the Fourth of July.
One of the most notable packages printed by the paper was included in its July 3 bicentennial issue, which featured an eight-page spread featuring guest essays and columns. One of the most notable entries was a nearly three-page story by staff writer Charles C. DuBois covering the life and death of David Lewis, an American criminal known as the “Robin Hood of Pennsylvania” who died in Bellefonte’s jail in 1820.
The bicentennial edition of the Centre Daily Times also featured a story highlighting the many Revolutionary War veterans buried across Centre County, followed by a printed list of the county’s more than 200 known Revolutionary War veterans, as compiled by local historian J. Marvin Lee in 1969.
The bicentennial edition concluded with full-page print of the Declaration of Independence.
July 6’s Centre Daily Times featured a full-page spread featuring some snapshots from bicentennial celebrations across Centre County, including water-skiing at the Sayers Dam reservoir and a reverend ringing the church bell at Zion United Church of Christ.
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