A Trip Down Memory Lane: Linton's Freedom Festival parade has undergone many changes in 104 years

Submitted & GCDW file photos The Linton Freedom Festival parade has went through many changes over the past 104 years. It used to go through most of downtown on North and South Main Sts. and the number of entries has increased from an average of 55 to over 200. This year's parade is Saturday at 10 a.m.

Now, the colorful displays of riders on a thousand different floats are increasingly resigned to faded photos and fond memories of Linton Freedom Festival parades, some over a century past.

The parade's changed as it has grown.

Up until the 1950s, the parade took a different path, heading north -- not south -- on Main Street.

It culminated near the high school in a grove where Linton-Stockton Elementary School was eventually built, close to where it begins in the present.

"When I was growing up, the parade lined up going east on (Little) A Street. It started at the post office, then went to the school, which was where the carnival grounds were," said longtime parade organizer Ralph Witty, 70, the president emeritus of the Linton-Stockton Chamber of Commerce.

"The last time that happened was in 1954 or 1955. That all got changed when they built the new grade school."

Floats and bands in those days began lining up near the current site of the Margaret Cooper Library, then headed toward where the hospital once stood. Now it's a Wendy's.

Parade organizer Fred Markle, 56, recalls the days when he was a "candy-catcher" -- his term for the many generations of kids who have sat curbside, awaiting goodies tossed from the floats.

Back then, he loved to use the now-long-gone hospital as his vantage point.

"That was my spot," he said. And then he grew up, as many natives do, to help assist with the event itself.

Witty's first year as parade organizer was 1970. By then, Markle was seeing the route from a speedier vantage point, escorting Witty around in the sidecar of his Harley-Davidson scooter.

"I got to run Ralph all around," he said, laughing. "That was my big thing, when I was 15 or 16."

There were fewer entrants in the past. The parade, now in its 104th year, has grown nearly four times its size in four decades, stretching from around 55 entries to as many as 225.

But longtime organizers say in the past, it seemed more people spent time creating floats and entries.

"It wasn't near what it is now," said Markle. Still, the bands seemed larger, and nearly every downtown business sponsored a float.

Witty recalls a time when it seemed "almost every organization and business in town" built floats, scrambling to find space in garages to create colorful contraptions designed to wind their way down the route.

When he began, more kids and families also got involved -- most marching, rather than watching.

For example, Witty's neighbors, the late Bruce and Thelma Vitosky, often built small floats on a two-wheeled platform pulled by a lawnmower during the 1950s and 1960s.

They were assisted by their cousins Billy and Kelly Hawtin of Indianapolis, and their son Steve Vitosky, along with Linton's Joe Crawford and Larry and Jerry Kendall.

Now, the Hawtins and Vitoskys have passed away, along with much of the interest in building floats locally. The reason? People are busier, and Witty regrets that.

"It seems like people are more interested in being entertained than being the entertainment," he said. "We've still got a lot of good things in the parade, but we've also got a lot of stuff" -- specifically, commercial advertising efforts like trucks and tractors -- "and we have done some things to try and keep that stuff out of there."

Traditional parade fare proves most popular, especially when it keeps to the theme of the day, Witty said.

"Most people like to see marching bands, color guards, decorated floats -- all the good things in a parade. But you end up with semi-trucks and commercial stuff," he said. "All that that wasn't really the original intent of the parade. We have decided that if someone wants a commercial entry, they should pay for it to offset some of the cost."

The line's drawn, Witty said, when undecorated vehicles are entered advertising a business.

"If their sole purpose to be in parade is to advertise a business, then they get charged. If they put in an entry that's decorated with the theme, it's OK to have a sign on door saying it's by XYZ company. That's fine. If it's just Joe Blow Trucking, then they get charged."

Time was, downtown businesses often made the parade a chance to express their creative side, seeing who could top one another.

"Things have changed," Markle said regretfully. "We've still got businesses downtown, but they're not a lot retail stores like they used to be. We lost a lot of the fun we had downtown."

One of those businesses, Markle recalls, was Dick Hastings Appliances, whose annual entries kept paradegoers in stitches.

"He'd always come up with some comedy theme, and the thing was, he'd never tell people what he was doing," Markle said, remembering the times Hastings dressed as a washerwoman or other colorful character.

"You never knew what he'd do. He'd always keep people guessing."

Markle tried to keep the tradition going, sometimes enlisting fellow musicians to perform as a "midget" band, standing in holes on a float with shoes strapped to their knees. But the last time he tried was almost a decade ago.

Instead, he's had to focus on handling the sound for events at Humphreys Park during the Freedom Festival, and finds the time it takes to do that limits the time he'd otherwise spend on a float.

That music and live entertainment sprang from a period when Linton lacked a carnival during the Freedom Fest, Witty said. Now, it has returned.

"There was a period of time when the carnival wasn't there on the 4th," he said. "In today's world there's not as many carnivals as there used to be. People are doing other things, and there are amusement parks now and things like that. We had a contract once with a carnival where we broke the contract, and so we couldn't get a carnival in for a few years. That's how the entertainment got started."

The festival, the largest independent parade in Indiana, draws thousands annually. Making it happen takes considerable effort -- and that's one thing that hasn't changed in a century, organizers said.

"People don't realize how much work this all takes," Markle said. And ensuring that the parade continues requires a steady stream of dedicated volunteers.

"I started in 1970," Witty, said. "I'm not going to be able to do it forever, I can't. So I'm trying to train other people and get them involved. I'll tell you over years I have had some top-notch people on my committee who were very dedicated, and we always had a good time doing it."

Linton Freedom Festival Schedule of Events

Marketplace

* The Marketplace will be open at the Roy Clark Community Building today and Saturday. There are several vendors who will have a variety of items available for sale.

The Marketplace will be open from 5-10 p.m. today, and 12:30-9 p.m. on Saturday.

Entertainment

* The carnival in Humphreys Park opens at 6 p.m. today and Saturday.

* The annual Linton Freedom Festival parade is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Saturday.

* Today, Vincennes University has partnered with the Freedom Festival and will be bring Terry Lee and the Rockaboogie Band to the bandshell at Humphreys Park starting at 7:30 p.m. This high-energy group should appeal to a wide audience.

* On Saturday, current Freedom Festival Queen Allison Young will kick off the evening entertainment at 7, followed by Kelsey Andis. Gregg Orman and the Cornerstone Eagle Band will be bringing a Silver Star Salute to veterans following Andis starting at 7:30 p.m. All area veterans will be recognized during this performance. Orman has a very special program planned for 8 p.m.

* The heavyweight horsepull will be at 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Conservation Club on Park Road.

* The annual fireworks show will be at 10:30 p.m. in Humphreys Park on Saturday.

Food

* The Linton Civitan Club will again host its ham breakfast beginning at 6 a.m. at the Linton Fire Department on Saturday. It will be serving until 9 a.m.