Two days before the first star spangled floats and marching bands of the Canonsburg 4th of July Parade plod up the slopes of Pike Street, anticipatory rows of folding chairs laid claim to the street curbs. Come parade morning, tens of thousands of people pack the street’s parade route as the ringing of church bells and the rumble of antique cars signal the start of the procession through the Washington County town’s business district. 

The annual Canonsburg parade started in 1963, when America was more than a bit different. John F. Kennedy was president amid the unrest of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, the use of ZIP codes had just been introduced, and there was only one “Wal-Mart Discount City” in the country. At that same time, Perry Como, born one of 13 children to an Italian millworker in Canonsburg, was hosting his successful NBC variety show, “Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall.”

Since then, the town has made its own news in relation to industry booms and busts (and booms again). But it’s the local lore of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion tearing open stolen federal mail sacks in the back room of the town’s Blackhorse Tavern that seems to tether the town to both the foundations and evolution of American history. 

In a time that calls us to continually question what it means to be American, the shoulder-to-shoulder scene at the Canonsburg 4th of July Parade offers a public forum to explore that meaning, in all its complicated packaging.