CENTENNIAL: We wrote Friday about the Old Home Week and Centennial celebration Aug. 9-15 in 1925 in Bradford.
The event, touted as a reunion for all of Bradford and bringing in people from all over the country, must have as big as any party the city has ever seen.
Starting several days before the event, The Era published article after article detailing the events planned for the week-long celebration, and advertisers got on board, too.
One ad, which appeared Aug. 4, 1925, was titled, “Old Home Week is Coming” and read, “A great many of your old friends will be in Bradford at that time. You will want to meet and greet them with a smile. But, it will kind of shame you if you have missing teeth or unsightly decayed teeth.”
The ad was for Dr. C.K. Barton.
By Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1925, the celebration was well underway, as one headline that day indicated, “Bradford’s Streets Assume A Genuine Carnival Aspect.”
According to The Era, “Bradford did herself proud yesterday on the second day of the Old Home Week and Centennial celebration. The task of making guests feel at home has never been an arduous one for ‘The Friendliest Oil Town in the World’ and when those guests are her returned sons and daughters who have not seen McKean county for years, the job becomes no task at all.”
In “Erie Shriners Plan Monster Ceremonial,” the newspaper gave a taste of an event planned for three days later, Aug. 14, 1925.
“Shriners from all over northwestern Pennsylvania will flock to Bradford 8,000 strong Friday when Zem Zem Temple of Erie stages its mid-summer ceremonial in this city as a feature of the local Old Home Week and Centennial celebration.”
Imagine 8,000 Shriners visiting Bradford. That’s nearly the city’s current population.
As the celebration was 90 years ago, we know there are very few people who might remember the events of the Old Home Week and Centennial celebration. However, we’re sure there have been a lot of good local parties over the years, and we wouldn’t mind hearing about them instead.
So, Readers, here’s your next challenge. Tell us about the biggest or best parties you remember from past decades in Bradford. Maybe it was a Halloween party at a firehall. Or a wedding reception in someone’s barn. We want to hear about the fun you had.
