ST. LOUIS — Thousands of people celebrated the Fourth of July in downtown St. Louis at the 141st America's Birthday Parade, which is part of Celebrate Saint Louis, the annual festival formerly known as Fair Saint Louis.
Around 40 patriotic floats, local marching bands and organizations made their way down Market Street to celebrate the holiday.
Many families said they've made the parade a long-standing tradition.
"I like them to see all the different cultures represented and everything fun and positive that's happening in St. Louis. I like to show them and explain who everybody is," Katie Gore said.
Paradegoer Kathy Mciver said, "I love St. Louis. I was born and bred here. My husband was from Idaho, but he passed two years ago and this was one of his favorite things. Yeah, so proud of this. I'm proud of the city. It's a great city."
Couple Carlos and Abigail Plazola said, "We've been here every year for the past like seven years we've been married and it's just amazing. We're having a great time. It's very fun because I never got to do this when I was a little kid. So now I get to do them with all my kids."
The party continued on after the parade right under the Arch with dozens of food stands and live music. The most popular items were hot dogs and snow cones.
"Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, any of those good holidays, all you can think of is a hot dog. That's what everybody wants to eat," said Jeremy Robinson with Steve's Hotdogs.
"We just love that St. Louis celebrates it so much. We love all the vendors that they put on and seeing everyone come down and celebrate because not a lot of people are downtown that much. So it's nice to see the town busy," said Jacquelyn Eakle.
Ken Frachtman, the owner of Under the Sun Sno Shack, said events like this make up 30% of their business each year.
"The whole thing is to make the customer happy. And the people who return because service is what we need in that country right now. If everybody has good customer service, businesses survive," he said.
The festival even brought the airshow back with the pilot from the movie Top Gun: Maverick.
"It's pretty wild to fly so low over where you don't see too many planes flying underneath the arch and things like that," Brian Eakle said.
The St. Louis sky will light up around 9:40 p.m. with the arch as the backdrop during some of the most impressive fireworks displays in the area.
In case you're hungry, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and Idaho Potato also stopped by downtown.
More events are taking place today, including the Eads Bridge 150th Celebration, airshow, live music and fireworks. The full schedule is available here.