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Calling for the installation of a Philadelphia Historic Marker on the west end of Eakins Oval, near Ericsson Fountain on Spring Garden Street, to commemorate the 100th Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade, the oldest known Thanksgiving Day Parade in the Nation, on November 28, 2019.
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WHEREAS, Ellis Gimbel, Chairman of the Board for Gimbel Brothers Department Store created the first organized Thanksgiving Day Parade in the Nation on November 25, 1920; and
WHEREAS,The first five parades modestly included 15 cars lavishly decorated with crepe paper, fifty employees, and a City firefighter dressed as Santa; and
WHEREAS, In 1925, the parade, or procession, grew from its humble beginnings to a parade that featured sixty parade elements including bands of music, floats, live animals and the arrival of Santa Claus on a float pulled by live reindeer, forming an activity which was officially named as the Gimbel's Thanksgiving Day Parade; and
WHEREAS, The parade, from 1925 to 1985, traveled down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, around City Hall and ended at the Gimbels Department store at 8th and Market Streets, where Santa would climb a Philadelphia Fire Department engine ladder into the window of the Gimbels Department store to officially kick off the holiday season; and
WHEREAS, The Santa Climb, like the parade itself, continued to grow establishing time-honored traditions with the addition of large parade balloons, large floats, celebrities, special parade units, high school and university marching bands from across the nation, up until 1985 when the Gimbel's Department store closed their doors for business, leaving this popular annual Philadelphia iconic event in peril; and
WHEREAS, In 1986, WPVI-TV (Channel 6) stepped up and, without skipping a parade step, resumed the long-standing parade by signing on as the official sponsor and producer, thus creating the Channel 6 Philadelphia Thanksgiving Day Parade, adding elaborate fancy floats, gigantic cha...
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