By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com

Whether your schedule is on your phone, your wall, or the back of your hand, make a note: fireworks are making a return to Sanford this July 4 as the highlight of a day of celebrations marking America’s 248th birthday.

Independence Day and fireworks go together like parades and picnics, like cookouts and hot dog eating contests. And in this year when the city is celebrating its 150th birthday, a day of festivities that mark the adoption of the Declaration of Independence will end in spectacular fashion – the first time an official fireworks show took place in Sanford in years.

The City Council gave its blessing in less than two minutes on February 6 by adopting a budget amendment that authorizes funding for the illuminations. Unless you were looking closely while the council was taking care of business that night, you might have missed the significance of what could otherwise have been another routine action.

Assistant City Manager Beth Kelly presented the item, an appropriation of $14,500 to pay for fireworks on July 4 by moving funds from the city’s General Fund account to line items in the Parks Department budget. In recent years, the city has chosen not to fund pyrotechnics on the Fourth of July, leaving StreetFest in the fall as the only public event of the year that ended with rockets bursting into the air.

But with the Summer Concert Series happening during the months when the weather and the calendar usually align to create the best times of the year for outdoor activities, a decision was made to have fireworks at the end of the day on July 4 and, if all goes well this time, there is hope that the Independence Day display can become an annual event that can be built into the city’s calendar and budget.

Bringing families downtown

The use of fireworks as a means of celebration goes all the way back to 1777, when a short burst of explosions in the nighttime sky of Philadelphia marked the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration. And in that first year, the fireworks were all of one type and one color – orange. The use of them by cities waxed and waned over the years after that, but re-emerged as the centerpiece of celebration in America’s bicentennial year of 1976.

Now, cities like Boston, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. offer some of the most intricate and breath-taking shows broadcast from coast-to-coast. But it’s really hard to match the feelings that those brightly colored explosive charges evoke anywhere better than small town America.

Standing next to our neighbors, it’s easy to remember that it was the light cast by exploding bombs that persuaded Francis Scott Key in 1814 that American forces had prevailed at Fort McHenry because he could see the Stars and Stripes at dawn the next morning. The symbolism created through that night has long endured as the promise of a nation to carry the lantern of freedom.

Much of what has traditionally attracted people to Sanford’s central business district for this holiday that also marks the year’s midpoint is also very much in flux. The historic Depot building will be closed as renovations to preserve its lifespan will be taking place. The Summer Concert Series is moving to Kiwanis Family Park and with July 4 falling on a Thursday in 2024, having a fireworks display as a way to cap off the day’s celebrations is another way to bring crowds back to the downtown area.

But the question of whether an annual fireworks celebration gets added to the calendar is still very much up in the air. Much of it will depend on how this year’s display goes, particularly with safety concerns and potential fire risks that might be created and how they could best be mitigated.

It’s hard to predict on a year-to-year basis how significant the impact of a fireworks show could be on the city’s budget for 2025, or whether changes in insurance rates could potentially make such an event cost prohibitive. It’s also hard to predict how the calendar for next year’s concert series might come into play.