Pekin in 1924: a city celebrates its centennial (Part Five)
We continue this week with our ongoing our series on Pekin’s Centennial Celebration in July 1924. The Pekin Daily Times gave extensive news coverage to the first day of the celebration in the Wednesday, 2 July 1924 edition of the newspaper. Following is a transcription of the last of the Daily Times’ Centennial articles from that day’s issue. This article, which appeared on page 3, tells of the plans for the Centennial Historical Parade that was scheduled for the last day of the celebration, on the afternoon of the Fourth of July. The bulk of this article consists of the list of the parade floats and marching groups in order.
A scene just before the start of Pekin’s Centennial Parade on 4 July 2024.
TREAT PROMISED BY HISTORICAL PARADE
Event To Feature Third Day Of Centennial
The Centennial Historical parade, one of the outstanding features of the celebration, will take place at 2 o’clock Friday.
The procession will form on East Washington, at Sixth, with floats resting on South Sixth and South Fifth, and the fraternal orders on Bacon and South Fourth. All floats and organizations have been assigned to their positions by letter. The parade will move west on Washington to Fourth, north on Fourth to Sabella, west to Second, north to Court and East on Court and around the lake at Mineral Springs park.
The numbers of the floats, and the organization placing the float in the parade, are as follows:
No. 1 – The First American Indian float, A. A. Club.
No. 2 – LaSalle, the Explorer, Knights of Pythias.
No. 3 – Prairie Schooners, Team Owners Union.
No. 4 – First Log House, Carpenters and Painters Unions.
No. 5 – The First Steamboat, B. P. O. Elks.
No. 6 – Pekin In Infancy, Kiwanis Club.
No. 7 – Black Hawk War, Improved Order of Red Men.
No. 8 – First Print Shop, Pekin Daily Times.
No. 9 – The Mexican War, Modern Woodmen.
No. 10 – Circuit Riders, Bar Association.
No. 11 – The First Locomotive, C. P. & St. L. and local railroad men.
No. 12 – Lincoln and Douglas, Federal Employees.
No. 14 – Costume Float 1860, Woman’s Club.
No. 15 – The Village Smithy, Pekin Wagon Co.
No. 16 – The Civil War Period, G. A. R. and W. R. C.
No. 23 – Modern Health Crusade, Tazewell Tuberculosis Assn.
No. 24 – One Thousand Years Ago, Players Club.
No. 25 – The Modern Home, The Home Bureau.
No. 26 – Miss Pekin of Today, Rotary Club.
No. 27 – Fire Department, Ancient and Modern.
Second Section
The second, or fraternal section of the parade will bring together a great gathering of Woodmen, Dokies, Grotto members, bands, drum corps, etc. The Grotto Bands, drum corps, marching bodies and the Woodmen will form on South Fifth, facing Washington. The Dokies and the bands, and other fraternal bodies will form on South Fourth. The mayor and commissioners will head the entire parade.
Captain S. C. Scrimger will serve as marshal of the day. Chairman Conklin of the Parade committee, Paul Massey, J. J. Crosby, Phil Kriegsman, F. W. Stolz, Louie King, C. Van Kirk, Fred Von Boeckman, John Goar and E. S. Loy will be the aides in charge.
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There are two things that are worthy of note in the above newspaper article. One thing is that there was no “No. 13” in this parade — following the old superstition about the number 13, the numbering of the parade floats skips from 12 to 14. Another thing that may require explanation are the references to “Grotto” and “Dokies.” One of Pekin’s Masonic groups, the Irin Grotto, had a marching band in the parade. Similarly, one of the side degrees of the Pekin Knights of Pythias (a masonic-like group no longer active in Pekin) is the Dramatic Order of the Knights of Khorassan, whose members are called Dokies from their group’s acronym (D.O.K.K.). The Dokies are somewhat analogous to the Shriners and wore Turkish-style uniforms.
Next week we will move on to the second day of Pekin’s Centennial Celebration, 3 July 1924, and its coverage in the Pekin Daily Times.
Local History Program Coordinator at the Pekin Public Library. I oversee the library's local history room collection and write a weekly local history column/blog.
