Omaha daily bee., 1916-10-06


sign, this parade was almost I'M
wieldy in its magnitude.
With thirty-one great floats of rare
design and fifteen historic groups,
with the platoons OF police, the gov
errors of AkASar- Ben, the eighteen
bands, the ten OK teams, the many
groups OF raw Indians from the reser-
walton, the burros, the pack mules,
the prairie schooners, the homestead
ers, stage coaches, groups of hunters
with flintlocks, trappers with pack
horses, squads and companies OF SOL
diers, and hundreds of horsemen in
many groups, all to be arranged and
wheeled into line at Sixteenth and
Cunning, the wonder was that the pa
rade ever got started at all,
Title Float.
A squad Of motor cycle police sput-
tered ahead Of the parade clearing the
streets. Came then the sixteen
mounted police headed by Chief Dunn.
The twelve governors of the Ak-Sar-
Ben followed on their horses, wearing
again the customary spotless white.
A band Immediately behind them set
the pace with lively music and dou-
bic roll of the drum, and behold the
title float appeared.
IS Three Miles of Parade.
The history of Nebraska could not
be told in moment. 1t could not
be represented in tiny parade. This
was a parade that unfolded its gigan-
tic length nearly three miles along
the route.
For period of slumbering ages was
covered in this mastery allegory. In
the dim ages before the days of Adam
there were great tropical monsters of
the animal and reptile kingdom in this
region, for their skeletons, petrified
and fossilized, have been found in the
ancient lake beds of the state. These
were reconstructed from the skeletal
measurements, and lived again in the
parade. The ice age was represented
with the tropical mammals numbering
helplessly about in the ice fields,
roaring their. rage and distress to the
mute zenith while the avalanches of
ice bore, them down. The first known
races Of men OF this territory walked
again in the great pageant, with their
semi-Aztec garb, and their dogs for
beasts OF burden.
Ok Teams and indians.
The Spanish explorers, the French
trappers, the American hunters, the
freighters with OK teams, the later In
dams with their scalping knives, the
homesteaders with their hardships, the
soldiers Of the early forts, the trad
ers and their trading posts, the early
forts and stockades, the territorial
inaugural ball, and all activities that
represented the high points of his
tory in this section, passed in grand
panoramic review before the admiring
eyes Of King Ak-Sar-B en's subjects.
Eighteen Bands.
Eighteen bands enlivened the pro-
cession. Eleven of them were bands
from out in the state and Iowa.
seven were Omaha bands. The eleven
were the bands of Stromsburg, Uni
versity of Nebraska, Wilbur, Ewing,
Fairbury, Wall Lake, Ia, Clatonia,
Ia, Arapahoe, Norfolk, Cambridge,
Chadron, and the following seven we're
Omaha bands: A. O. U. w., Bohem-
ian band, First Regiment X. of p,
Omaha Drum Corps, Post Office,
Firms and A. Fairbrother's.
An allegorical figure representing
history was mounted on the title
float. A big boulder stood in the mid
die with crude carving or chiselling
of the names OF some of the rugged
pioneers who blazed the trail through
this wilderness in the decades and
centuries gone by.
The tropical age was represented
in the second float with tropical YER
dure, palms dropping their rich
leaves and festoons of tropical vines
swinging low, while great prehistoric
monsters crawled about the side of
the float or threshed their scaly tails
about in the slime.
The change in the earth's axis fol-
lowed, and the effect was shown in
the next float, which represented the
coming of the glacial age. A huge
mastodon, the prehistoric elephant of
the tropics, was seen floundering
hopelessly beneath an avalanche OF
ice.
Man Appears.
Again the icebergs were forced
back by the sun, and the following
group showed the appearance of man,
the primitive Indians slowly migra-
ting along the trail, with their dog
trevois, for this was in the days be-
fore the Indians had horses.
Coronado came next, the daring
Spaniard on horseback, with his cav
alcade of Spaniards who braved the
wilds of this territory some three
centuries ago. They came with their
Indian slaves, and with "the Turk"
the notorious scout who acted as
their guide.
Followed then another group of In
dams of the period of Coronado, with
contemporaneous costumes.
Another float followed this group,