Plans Made for 4th of July Parade

The city has announced plans for its 86th annual Fourth of July parade and 8-kilometer race.

The parade, the oldest such Fourth of July celebration west of the Mississippi River, is held on Main Street, starting in the downtown area near Pacific Coast Highway and ending at the Civic Center at Yorktown Avenue.

The first such parade in the city, on July 4, 1904, was held to greet the arrival of Henry E. Huntington’s Pacific Electric Co. red rail cars, as Huntington ushered transit service into the then sleepy hamlet called Pacific City. Bringing the rail cars linked the tiny beach community to the booming Long Beach and Los Angeles areas. Community officials, in appreciation, changed the name of Pacific City to Huntington Beach.

Ever since, the city has marked the Fourth of July with street parades. Usually a celebrity is tapped to be a parade marshal, and this year’s marshal will be Los Angeles television newsman Ed Arnold, city officials announced. Arnold, a sports broadcaster and anchorman for KTLA-TV, lives in Fountain Valley.

Before the 10 a.m. start of this year’s parade, there will be a pancake breakfast sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and an 8-kilometer race, the proceeds of which go the March of Dimes.