Houlton celebrates 200 years City marks bicentennial with weekend featuring a parade, fairs, fireworks and quilt show

Complete with a parade, fireworks and images of the past, residents of Houlton and visitors to the town came out in force over the weekend to help celebrate the municipality’s 200th birthday.

Despite cool weather and overcast skies, the bicentennial celebration for which organizers prepared for more than a year was well-attended.

Planners also wove events of the 48th annual Potato Feast Days celebration into the bicentennial festivities celebrating the founding of the town by Joseph Houlton and his wife, Sarah.

The morning started with a parade featuring units from the Anah Temple Shrine, antique farm and fire equipment, and entries from local businesses and organizations.

Descendants from the families of some of Houlton’s first settlers also took part in the parade.

Market Square was crowded all day Saturday. A craft fair and music drew crowds to Monument Park, and celebrants enjoyed a Civil War historical encampment in Riverside Park. The event featured the firing of muskets, evening campfires and period role-playing.

Over the weekend, many revelers took time to check out the downtown’s historic architecture, purchase commemorative T-shirts, stamps and other items, and to gaze at some of the old photographs several stores displayed in their windows.

Children’s games took place in Community Park as well as several concerts.

The Friends and Needles Quilt Guild’s annual quilt show, “Not Just Your Grandmother’s Quilts,” at the Houlton Lodge of Elks showcased a number of ancestral quilts as well as those made by present-day sewers. The centerpiece of the show was the Houlton Bicentennial Quilt, which was made by guild members.

Outside the show Saturday, Ann Simmons, a tourist from Massachusetts who was enjoying the festivities with friends, was on a mission to find several of the quilters who had entered pieces in the show.

“I loved the bicentennial quilt,” she said, referring to the resplendent blanket that is dotted with images of gardens, trees, mountains, animals and other features that represent Aroostook County. “You can see how much work went into it, and the colors are just amazing. I could have looked at it all day.”

Simmons, who recently started quilting, said she planned to talk to some of the guild members to “get some sewing tips.”

The quilt was presented to the town in June and will be housed in the archives of the Aroostook County Historical and Art museum.

Just a short distance away, Ellen McIntyre was sorting through some shopping bags while her husband waited nearby, sampling a baked potato he’d purchased in Monument Park.

The Tallahassee, Fla., residents were in Aroostook County visiting friends before continuing on with their vacation.

“I’ve hit all the stores this afternoon,” McIntyre said. “I went to the craft fair in the park and stopped into the quilt show. We’ve been having a great time.”

The celebration wrapped up Sunday.