Vintage DTM: Dogwood Festival Parade

With the 2014 Dogwood Festival in full swing, Vintage DTM looks back to one of the last Dogwood Festival Parades that would navigate Main Street downtown before the construction of the pedestrian mall. This photograph shows East Main at Third Street. The bank building (still there today) stands in the back ground, as well as Williams’ Corner Shop (where Virginia National Bank currently has a branch). We are fairly certain this is 1973 and the Dogwood Festival Court is on the float. In any case, this was one of the rare night parades for the Dogwood Festival. One other bit of trivia: despite the 2014 festival being called the "65th Dogwood Festival” the Dogwood Festival has actually only been going on since 1958. If you do the math, things don’t add up. The answer: prior to the Dogwood Festival, Charlottesville’s annual festival was held in the autumn and called the “Apple Harvest Festival.” The several years of that event are included in the 65 years. Photo credit: Ed Roseberry. Vintage DTM is produced by C’ville Images. More vintage photos at www.cvilleimages.com