Maple Leaf Parade to kick off full day of activities Saturday

Although the official schedule says the Maple Leaf Festival begins on Friday, anyone who has ever made a Saturday morning visit to Baldwin City for the festival knows it’s the annual parade that really gets the event started.

Again this year, the parade will start at 11 a.m. Saturday. Expect floats, marching bands, horseback riders and fire trucks to travel the parade route on streets lined with the maple trees that give the festival its name. The parade route starts at Third and High streets, heads west to Sixth and High streets, and continue north on Sixth Street. There is no charge to enter the parade.

Donna Curran, Maple Leaf Festival Committee member, said she expected about 120 entries in the parade. The parade official deadline has passed, but entries are welcome the day of the parade. However, those late entrees won’t be announced as they move by the viewing stand at Sixth and High streets. No parade entrants, even those previously registered, will be accepted after 10:30 a.m.

Entrants traditionally start gathering for the parade at 9 a.m. The floats and vehicles will line up on Hillside Drive off U.S. Highway 56, while the other entries will line up on High Street. Horseback riders are to assemble on Third Street south of High Street near Oakwood Cemetery. Marching bands are to assemble in the 2nd Street parking lot of the Baker University Stadium.

This year’s parade and festival theme is “Ride the Rails to Baldwin City,” in honor of the Baldwin City tourist excursion railroad Midland Railway. The parade’s grand marshal will be Midland Railway founding member Art Davis.

A much smaller and less formal parade — the kids’ parade — will start at 10:45 a.m. on Saturday and will complete a square block march downtown. Those wanting to participate in that parade should gather at the festival’s children entertainment site in front of the Baldwin City Public Library at Seventh and High streets.


Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the grand marshal of Saturday’s Maple Leaf Festival Parade. Midland Railway founding member Art Davis will be grand marshal.