Northwest Territory Celebration

On April 30, 1938, thousands of people in Sandusky celebrated the 150^th anniversary of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.  A parade, banquet, and pageant were features of the local celebration. At 10:30 a.m. an ox-cart caravan of thirty-seven youth arrived. The young people re-enacted the journey of Ohio’s first settlers from Ipswich, Massachusetts to Marietta, Ohio. The parade began at 2:30 P.M., starting at Hayes Avenue and extending north to downtown Sandusky.

Scores of floats participated in the parade, including those from civic and fraternal organizations, marching units, area businesses and military organizations. The American Red Cross float featured a banner that read: “In Service of Those Who Suffer.”

A banquet was held at Jackson Junior High School  at 6 p.m. The school’s auditorium was decorated to look like the stockade at Fort Boonesborough, Kentucky. At 8:30 p.m. a free pageant was held at Strobel Field, where events in the settling of the state of Ohio were re-enacted. Read accounts of the festivities in Sandusky in 1938 at the Northwest Territory Celebration from the Sandusky Register, now on microfilm at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.