Although we’re looking forward to the ultimate historically entertaining blowout when we celebrate the nation’s 250th on July 4, the Oswegoland area is already looking to the 2026 edition of PrairieFest in a few weeks, the eagerly anticipated community festival filled with entertainment, fun, and food.

Each year’s PrairieFest joins the area’s community celebrations, with other towns up and down the Fox Valley chipping in with their own. Yorkville has their traditional July Fourth celebration, parade, and fireworks—greatly expanded this year; Plano celebrates Juneteenth this year; Aurora has a bunch of festivals all summer; Geneva has Swedish Days; Montgomery has MontgomeryFest; and on and on.

Years ago, community celebrations were smaller, farther between, and were designed for the amusement of immediate area residents unlike many of today’s statewide marketed fests. Those long-ago festivities were usually kept pretty short, but the enjoyment was no less intense. In fact, it was probably more intense simply because there were so many fewer forms of entertainment available then.

During my childhood, the big community event in Oswego was the annual carnival—the great-granddaddy of today’s PrairieFest—sponsored by the Oswego Business Men’s Association, the forerunner of today’s chamber of commerce, which set up shop right on South Main Street. The Tilt-A-Whirl, Ferris wheel, and other small rides really gave us a thrill, as did the opportunity to engage in games of chance with unsavory carny workers.

A more wholesome activity was the annual school fun fair at Halloween. Today, each school building has their own fun fair, but in the 1950s it was a traditional community Halloween event, sponsored by the PTA—there was only one in those days—as their main fundraiser.

First at the old Red Brick School gym and later at the new high school (later Traughber Junior High and now–at least for a while yet–the District 308 Center) on Franklin Street, we enjoyed Halloween costume contests and had the chance to win wooden canes and other highly-prized do-dads in the ring toss, penny pitch, and other games.

Back in the 1800s, formal community celebrations were even rarer, with the annual county fair the most important local event. In the 1850s, according to accounts in the Kendall County Courier, the fair was held at the courthouse in Oswego, with displays of produce and other traditional fair fare arranged around the courthouse grounds.

The first Kendall County Fair and Livestock Show was held at Oswego in 1853, and continued to grow in popularity over the years.

After the county seat moved back to Yorkville 1864, a real fairgrounds was acquired on Game Farm Road about where the Beecher Center is now located. Although it continued to be popular, mismanagement raised its ugly head and the fair association was dissolved in 1908, just five years after celebrating its 50th anniversary. Eventually, the Kendall County Fair was revived, and each year it seems to become more popular.

Of course, our neighbors to the west in Sandwich still produce their annual DeKalb County Fair, one of the oldest and the best county fairs in Illinois, if not the nation.

Besides those annual events, each community enjoyed their own small celebrations. Most of these events were put on by local organizations as fundraisers or were the products of itinerant entertainers.

For instance, in a curious mixture of sponsor and eventual end money use, take this item from the Sept. 30, 1869 Kendall County Record: “The Oswego Union Sewing Society’s peach festival of last week was not well attended; the proceeds of it are to go towards buying a hearse, but this generation need not expect the benefits of one unless funds for the same are raised by some other means.”

The new hearse was finally purchased in 1871, apparently much to the community’s satisfaction.

Occasionally, two towns would get together for some competitive activities, and from the late 1800s through the first few decades of the 1900s, baseball was extremely popular.

The July 31, 1874 Record reported: “Last Saturday afternoon, the boys from Yorkville played a ball game against Oswego. Mr. Geo. Seeley was selected as umpire and the mercury stood at 104 in the shade. At the close of the fifth inning the game was closed with a score of nine for Oswego and 15 for Yorkville; the Yorkville boys having to take the train to get back home. Mr. King, of the Yorkville club, caught a ball handsomely in the right eye, and a little later an Oswego boy got one in his left eye.”

During the 1800s, a number of traveling, medicine and other shows, from one man with a dancing bear to an entire circus, visited local communities from time to time.

An Oswego reporter noted in 1874 that “a menagerie, consisting of two men, a bear, and a drum came along the other day and exhibited in the streets; the bear was a good upright walker, would dance, and shake hands with and kiss the ringmaster, carry a pole, wear a hat, roll over, etc.”

One Oswego youth, Will Sutherland, even traveled with a circus in the early 1900s. And in 1923, a circus took a break near Oswego, startling residents. According to the Record: “Grange Brothers Circus passed Oswego on Route 18 [now U.S. Route 34] Saturday morning enroute from Sandwich to Belvedere. Early risers were surprised to see elephants and camels grazing along the roadside or blocking traffic.”

Small towns did have community celebrations back then, most notably on the Fourth of July. According to back issues of the Record, most local Independence Day celebrations had several things in common. There was usually a parade, although it was usually called a procession.

Oration was the featured event, since that was an era that appreciated the long-winded stump speech, including reading the Declaration of Independence, followed by speeches by the best local, and sometimes imported, orators. Most towns had a local band, and band music and singing were both parts of most years‘ celebrations, as were foot races, baseball games, and croquet.

I imagine people have found reasons to celebrate one thing or another for as long as there have been people. It seems that only the size, cost, and the frequency of our celebrations have changed through the years.

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