History of the Parade
Traditionally, the parade in Albany, Oregon has been the largest Veterans Day Parade west of the Mississippi and the third largest in the USA.
Albany, Oregon has celebrated Armistice/Veterans Day since 1919. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. Thus, the first celebration of the end of “the war to end all wars” was November 11, 1919.
Proclamation from President Woodrow Wilson
The White House, November 11, 1919
A year ago, today our enemies laid down their arms in accordance with an armistice which rendered them impotent to renew hostilities and gave to the world an assured opportunity to reconstruct its shattered order and to work out in peace a new and more just set of international relations. The soldiers and people of the European Allies had fought and endured for more than four years to uphold the barrier of civilization against the aggression of armed force. We ourselves had been in the conflict something more than a year and a half. With splendid forgetfulness of mere personal concerns, we remodeled our industries, concentrated our financial resources, increased our agricultural output, and assembled a great army, so that at the last our power was a decisive factor in the victory. We were able to bring the vast resources, material and moral, of
a great and free people to the assistance of our associates in Europe who had suffered and sacrificed without limit in the cause for which we fought. Out of this victory there arose new possibilities of political freedom and economic concert. The war showed us the strength of great nations acting together for high purposes, and the victory of arms foretells the enduring conquests which can be made in peace when nations act justly and in furtherance of the common interests of men. To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations.
The first decades of Armistice Day celebrations were vastly different from the current parade and accompanying Memorial Service. During the first years of the November 11th celebrations, events included log rolling, pistol shooting, horse racing, and cake baking competitions. According to the newspaper articles of the time the celebrations at first were small and as years passed, they grew into whole weekend celebrations of picnics (weather permitting), river boat competitions and lots of friendly community competitions.
In 1945 Representative Ed Rees from Emporia, Kansas introduced a bill to make Armistice Day a day to include all veterans from all eras to be recognized and celebrated for their courage and sacrifice. President Eisenhower signed that bill into law and then congress, on June 1, 1954, amended that bill to name the day Veterans Day. For a brief time from 1971 to 1977, Veterans Day was celebrated as a Monday holiday and then in 1978 returned to the original November 11th, a day of celebration, where it continues to this day.
In 1951 Ted Lovelace and a group of local veterans and community leaders would cooperate to form the Linn County Veterans Council which was the beginning of what would become one of the largest Veterans Day Parade west of the Mississippi and the third largest Veterans Day Parade in the USA. With the help of many invaluable research resources here in Linn County, what follows is the local history of Veterans Day observances over the years.
The goal of the first Linn County Veterans Council was to make Linn County the most patriotic county in the country since the Armistice Day celebration of 1951 was spiritless. Jim Barrett and two friends, Lawrence Sheeler and Sterling Gentry set out in cooperation with the Boy Scouts to change the dynamic here in Albany. By 1954 when Veterans Day was proclaimed a national holiday the parade was a mile long. During the 1950’s and the early 1960’s the parade enjoyed great expansion and the dignitaries from Camp Adair, congress and the governor of Oregon had made Linn County "the place to be" for Veterans Day. It was during this time that Hollywood took notice and for several years Hollywood celebrities graced the cars for the parade. The list of celebrities includes Raymond Burr, Audie Murphy, General Jimmy Doolittle, Jesse Owens, Don Scholander, Governor Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, Hugh O’Brien, and many more.
Even though many communities in this country treated veterans with everything from outright hostility to indifference, the Veterans Day Parade was enthusiastically supported, and veterans were well represented and admired. Many organizations participated in the Veterans Day celebrations. The Optimists hosted and still host a pancake breakfast at West Albany High School, there were essay competitions in which the newspaper published the top 3 entries. Astronauts and generals, movie stars and government officials put aside their ranks for the weekends here in Albany and everyone recognized that there are people who will still lay their lives on the line for our freedom. The Boy Scouts were a perennial presence during the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Sometimes as many as 240 scouts would come with flags in hand to be a part of our celebration. As the years passed and the participation in scouting diminished, so did the scouts’ participation in the parade.
For a while, the parade had difficulty in finding leadership as lives grew busy and more people moved into Linn County, people who had no idea of the history and the people who had been leading the parade for years passed. This is when Louie White, Ed Horinek, and Ernie Argo stepped up to keep our parade tradition alive. And as the 20th century closed and the 21st began there seemed great interest in attending the parade but little interest in organizing it. At that point, the Linn County Veterans Council disbanded, and the Veterans Commemoration Association stepped up under the leadership of Pat Morits. After Pat put in her stint as chair of the committee that organized the parade Louie White stepped in for a couple of years then Patty Louisiana took charge from 2011 to 2019.
Due to COVID-19, the parade as it was known was suspended for two years. Retired Colonel Chris Reese, president of the Mid-Willamette Family YMCA and McCall Washburn had the brilliant idea for Albany to host reverse parades to keep the tradition alive. As many as 35 entries set up displays around Albany. Each display had a QR code and as people drove around our city checking out the displays and waving at the many veterans that were on the displays, they could collect these QR codes and apply for prizes. Our grateful thank you to Colonel Reese and McCall Washburn and their many helpers for doing their utmost to keep alive our tradition of being the most patriotic county in the country.
When things began to open back up, Chris Reese passed the baton to the newly formed Linn County Veterans Day Parade Committee, headed up by Christine Ferguson, a new resident of Oregon and Linn County, who wanted to see the tradition continue. There has been a great deal of support from people outside of our county as well as our home-grown participants. It's the hope of the Committee that in the future we will be able to maintain and grow the understanding of the sacrifices of our Veterans. We understand that thank you goes not only to those who served in combat but also those who waited and served in support.
sincerest gratitude to all Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force and Coast Guard veterans and those currently serving.