Lake Forest Day 2020 Parade, Carnival Canceled Due To Coronavirus

LAKE FOREST, IL —The Lake Forest Day parade and carnival events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the community will still have a chance to develop a re-imagined version of the 100-year-old event, organizers announced.

The event is sponsored by the McKinlock American Legion Post 264 and the Lake Forest Foundation and has been held nearly every August for more than a century. The parade traditionally heads down Western and Westminster avenues before ending at West Park, where a two-day carnival is held.

"We're hoping to use this moment to find another way of celebrating who we are, to support the local American Legion post and to create something different, fun and memorable in the community," event organizers Ed Geraghty, the post's commander, said in a statement. "Stay tuned."

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State guidelines to limit the potential transmission of the coronavirus mean that the usual event must be put on hold until 2021. Gov. J.B. Pritzker's Restore Illinois reopening plan does not permit gatherings of more than 50 people until a vaccine or effective COVID-19 treatment is available.

Organizers said concepts for an "alternative, re-imagined version" of Lake Forest Day that meets the anticipated state requirements, based on the dates of the event — Aug. 4 to Aug. 5.

During the week of June 8, the Lake Forest community will have a chance to review potential concepts for the 2020 event, and residents will be able to vote on their preferred alternative.

Lake Forest Day has likely been cancelled only twice since 1908, once during the Great Depression and once during World War II, Geraghty told the Lake Forester, which first reported the cancellation.

Lake Forester newspaper archives indicate Lake Forest Day was not held in 1917 and 1918 due to World War I but was held on Labor Day 1919 before the American Legion began organizing the event and the annual parade tradition took hold, according to Laurie Stein, curator of the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Center.