EATON — The Preble County Historical Society held its Old Fashion Independence Day Fireworks celebration on Sunday, July 4.
The events was the unofficial kick-off the the society’s 50th celebration.
“Actually, standing at the top [of the amphitheater] during the fireworks I had an overwhelming sense of emotion, and I got tears in my eyes because we work so hard to put this together,” Lisa White, Preble County Historical Society Director of Business and Marketing, said. “And it seems like work, work, work but when you see thousands of people watching and enjoying with their friends and family after the year that we just had it was just really emotional and to know that I had a little thing to do with it was really cool.”
Gates opened at 5 p.m. with food, face painting, open exhibits, and more. An estimated crowd of close to 2,000 people gathered to listen to the Flat Out Band and watch fireworks to close out the celebration. This year’s fireworks show was presented by Rozzi Fireworks, who also designs the WEBN show in Cincinnati.
While the days festivities were popular, White reminded why the historical society exists.
“I just am really happy,” she said. “I think it’s really important to say that sometimes we also forget with the Historical Society, why we do what we do, and the deep root of it all is to preserve and protect our collections, and our artifacts and things from the 1800s and our precious cars and our log house and things that we have, that’s what’s really important. So we can do all of these concerts and this fireworks celebration and bug shows and things that like that but we have to remember that the real reason why we’re here is to keep this going way past our time.”
White calls the historical park a “gem”.
“We have this little gem in Preble County, 250, acres of a park here for people to enjoy, most of the time for free, with our trails and our picnic area and our exhibits and we invite people, it is open seven days, a week dawn till dusk. And we want people to be here,” she said. “Like the metro parks, this is Preble County’s Metro Park. Come explore and be here and spend time with your family and enjoy all the things that we are so much trying to bring back, we want this place to live. We want it to be alive. I don’t want to ever see this sit stale, I want this to live. Now I feel like it’s just thriving. And tonight, there was so much life. It was so overwhelming. Me standing at the top by the fountain, it was so overwhelming.
For more information about the Preble County Historical Society visit https://www.preblecountyhistoricalsociety.com or call 937-787-4256.
