History

Vacaville residents seem to get in the mood for pageants and festivals once spring rolls around. For the past 101 years, they have turned out for many different spring and summer celebrations. Vacaville Pageant Day on April 30, 1916 was a grand production, "a poetic idea successfully carried out by the united efforts of the community," noted The Reporter in its edition of May 5, 1916.

Main Street was draped with flags and 1,500 lined the street to watch the parade of 300 pageant participants pass from High School Hill down to Main. The pageant depicted the history of California and Vacaville.

Chief Solano led the parade followed by American Indians native to the Vacaville area. Next followed the Spanish with descendants of the city's founding families, the Vaca's and the Pena's. A chorus sang "La Paloma." Next came the Fansciscan fathers, the gold rush miners, cowboys, farmers, the Japanese and Chinese, Gypsies and singing schoolchildren. Bringing up the rear were decorated automobiles - still a new sight in 1916.

Wells Fargo Co. lent an old '49er stagecoach, just as it does now in the Fiesta Days Parade.