People and communities
Tabernacle’s Bicentennial: baking for the playing fields
Documented history · Sources compared
An event program reveals how a national anniversary became a day of local games, fundraising and family participation.
The date was July 17
The Tabernacle Athletic Association program schedules its all-day Bicentennial event for Saturday, July 17, 1976, beginning at ten. July 18 appears as the rain date. This local celebration should not automatically be dated July 4. Original event program.
Baking became support for athletics
The program says baking-contest entries would be auctioned for the athletic association. Sewing and needlework judging sat alongside a costumed baby parade, homemade-kite contest and three-legged race. These were planned activities, not a financial account of what the association ultimately raised. Program contests and auction.
An ordinary field became a performance space
Mounted cavalry maneuvers, a firemen’s rodeo, a calliope demonstration, music and evening square dancing filled the schedule. The society’s JoAnn Moore photograph collection documents several of the activities. The program and photographs preserve different evidence: intention and selected moments of the day. Program schedule; JoAnn Moore collection.
Sources and research limits
The program was inspected directly. The society’s collection description was read; the entire photograph sequence was not audited. No attendance or fundraising total is asserted.