The Memorial Day parade: the city's oldest standing date

Annual, each May · Main Street to Battell Park

The tradition: The Memorial Day parade is the senior annual in this record — how senior, the record reached does not say: no founding year for the parade was established in the sources reached for this build, and the gap is named here rather than filled, its settling sources the Enterprise and News-Times files and the veterans' posts' own records. What the record does fix is the parade's geography and its modern course. Its ground was set in 1928, when the Battell Park bandshell was dedicated three days before Memorial Day as the city's war memorial, and parades have typically ended near the bandshell and the 1884 Soldiers' Memorial since — the route the city publishes today runs the same course: from Third and Main north to Mishawaka Avenue, west past the review stand, ending at Mishawaka Avenue and Forest for the remembrance ceremony.

The lapse and the return: The parade's documented modern story is an interruption and a rebuilding. After years of cancellations, the parade returned in 2023 — the city's own account calls it Mishawaka's first Memorial Day parade since 2019 — rebuilt by Dan Gann, commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 360, with World War II and Korean War veteran Raymond Gervais, 97, as grand marshal, under the theme "Duty-Honor-Country." The editions since stand in the city's published record: May 27, 2024, commencing 9:30 a.m. from Third and Main; and the parade announced for Monday, May 25, 2026, organized by VFW Post 360 and American Legion Post 161 in partnership with the city, under the theme "250 Years of Sacrifice," for the approaching 250th anniversary of the United States. The parade is carried here as one entry with its editions combined, as the procedure directs; its meaning as the city's earnest remembrance is the veterans' record's, and its terminus ground is Parks & River's.

Sources:

1. City of Mishawaka, "Mishawaka Memorial Day Parade" (mishawaka.in.gov, May 30, 2023) — the return after years of cancellations, the first parade since 2019, Dan Gann's rebuilding, Grand Marshal Raymond Gervais, and the theme "Duty-Honor-Country."
2. City of Mishawaka, parade announcements of May 2024 and May 2026 (mishawaka.in.gov) — the May 27, 2024 edition, its 9:30 a.m. start and published route; and the May 25, 2026 edition, VFW Post 360 and American Legion Post 161 with the city, theme "250 Years of Sacrifice."
3. National Register registration form, Battell Park Historic District (1995), as presented in the Clio entry for Battell Park — the bandshell's dedication of May 28, 1928 and the parades ending near the bandshell and the Civil War memorial.