Riverside History

Step into the past to get a glimpse of the Village’s Independence Day festivities in 1966. While the celebration looked slightly different than today, the sense of community was just as strong.

The 51st Independence Day Celebration started with the main parade featuring the Norwood Park Drum and Bugle Corps. In honor of his long service to the Village, S. Ashley Guthrie, Village Attorney, led the parade as marshal. Everyone gathered at “Ball Park” immediately following the parade for “patriotic exercises,” which included the posting of the colors, singing of the National Anthem, and speeches, followed by awards for classic and antique cars.

Evidently, Riversiders loved a good parade as the afternoon included a triple dose of fun with three specialty parades for the children. The Central School PTA hosted the “Teenie Weenie” parade for children aged six and under. Children lined up at 1:00 p.m. to march through “Ball Park,” and judges awarded prizes for the most original, the most patriotic, and the prettiest. The Girl Scouts organized the Bicycle Parade, with prizes for the most patriotic, the most original, and the funniest. Not to be outdone, the Camp Fire Girls hosted a Costume Parade for children ages 7 to 16.

Following the parades, boys and girls participated in contests and races hosted by the Riverside Junior Chamber of Commerce. After the games, the Riverside and North Riverside Fire Departments competed in a water contest. The day’s festivities capped off with a Little League Baseball game.

Share your memories of Independence Day celebrations of the past in the comments!

Today, we grab lunch from a food truck. In the early 1900s, street peddlers hawked their wares along Riverside’s curving roads, calling out from their perch on a horse-drawn wagon. Street peddlers sold everything from produce and dairy products to flowers and used merchandise.

In 1856, Mueller’s Brewery opened for business and began supplying beer to local taverns. Their crews delivered the beer by horse-drawn wagon. The brewery was located just north of Ogden Avenue and east of the Des Plaines River. The brewery burned down in 1873, but its ruins survived and became a magnet for children to play in, running through passages and caves. In the early 1900s, the ruins were demolished after a wall collapsed and killed a 13-year-old boy. Nothing was rebuilt on the site. Today it is a wooded area on Ogden Avenue between Miller Road and the river.