Texas joined the union of the United States 70 years after the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
Victorians were Spaniards, Mexicans and Texians before they became Americans with the rest of Texas in 1846. Just 15 years later, Texas seceded for the duration of the Civil War (1861-1865) and was later fully readmitted to the union in 1870.
For many years after the Civil War, patriotic sentiment in much of the South was not bent toward the Union of the United States.
Many Southerners did not celebrate Independence Day in the decades following the Confederacy’s 1865 surrender, according to the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies.
For these reasons, when searching the past for information on Independence Day celebrations in Victoria, barren stretches loom on the road of discovery.
The best source at the Victoria Regional History Center for information regarding Victoria’s past Fourth of July observances are the Victoria Advocate archives.
In 1850, just four years after Texas became a state, a sectional crisis between the Northern and Southern states was already brewing.
The July 5, 1850, Texian Advocate (later renamed Victoria Advocate), was already marking the crisis more than 10 years before secession.
“Never since the origin of the Government have the American people been called upon to celebrate the Nation’s birth-day, and the birth-day too of well-regulated liberty, under circumstances so solemn as the present,” the Advocate reported. “The name and fame of the father of this country is the common heritage of every child of the American Union.”
The article urged readers to remember that the United States were of “one blood” and under “one God.”
After this 1850 article, the Fourth of July seemed to drop from the radar for Victoria until an 1876 article gave an amusing mention of the day.
“Cotton picking commenced … near 100 degrees in the shade,” the Advocate reported. “Is it not to be considered madness to dance at this season of the year? Yet the young folks must have their fun, and the old folks like to have it, too. The Fourth of July was a pleasant day with us that will be long remembered.”
The June 28, 1879, Advocate mentioned that a Victoria “committee on invitation for the celebration of the Fourth” had been instructed to invite citizens from several surrounding counties.
“A large crowd is expected from all quarters,” the report said.
Leap forward to the advent of World War I, and Independence Day celebrations in Victoria seemed to be back in full swing. The July 3, 1918, edition of the Advocate listed an entire roster of events scheduled for the next day, culminating with a dance. Missing from the schedule: any mention of a fireworks display.
During the Great Depression, the July 5, 1936, edition of the Advocate reported, “Victorians took their Fourth of July straight for the most part, with no planned celebration here in observance of national Independence Day.”
The same article reported that most people traveled to Port Lavaca if they wanted to observe the holiday. That town, it said, expected 20,000 celebrants, with fireworks over the water.
Recently, an Advocate reader asked when Victoria had its first Fourth of July fireworks show. It’s hard to be certain of that, given the early fits and starts of Texas statehood. One thing is certain, Victoria seemed all-in for the Fourth of July by 1879.
Most Independence Days back then apparently ended in a dance rather than in the boom of fireworks though.
Perhaps the certain date of Victoria’s first fireworks display rests in someone’s long-ago family memory.
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