On this Date in Minnesota History: May 14

May 14, 1910 – In a momentous effort to reveal the strength of the prohibition movement in Minneapolis, tens of thousands of temperance workers paraded the downtown retail district this afternoon with the results that practically all business was temporarily suspended, street car lines were tied up, and citizens turned out en mass for more than two hours.

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people participated in the event. The line of the parade was several miles long. Grand Marshal A. A. Kelley declared that there were fully 50,000 people in the procession.

At 2:15 p.m., the first division started. When the head of this section reached the end of its journey at the Armory, the rear division had not yet left the assembly point at 8^th Street and 3^rd Ave. S. The distance was about two and one-half miles.

Enormous crowds witnessed the parade. All along the line of march, from the beginning to the finish, throngs gathered upon the sidewalks and even crowded onto the streets, only to be shoved back by the police. Nicollet Ave. from Washington Ave. to 10^th Street was so congested that pedestrians could barely shove their way through.

Businesses and department stores along this way found themselves without customers during the progress of the parade and were compelled to give their employees a temporary holiday. With scarcely an exception, every window was filled with spectators, while in many cases the people had crowded out over the cornices and on the sills.

It appeared as if the entire population of Minneapolis was out. It was suggested that had the census man been about, he could have completed his work in a single afternoon.

Scarcely a more spectacular parade was ever witnessed in the Mill City. The unique design of floats, the bands and drum majors, the flying pennants, prancing horses bedecked with ribbons and draped with ensigns that bore inscriptions, the automobiles, the marshals wrapped in their red and white sashes—all combine to form a scene that has had few parallels.

The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; “Temperance Parade Includes Thousands. Greatest Anti-Saloon Demonstration Ever Held in Minneapolis Is Over. Procession Several Miles in Length of Men, Women and Children. Downtown Streets Thronged With Spectators Who Stand for Hours.”; May 15, 1910; PP. 1 & 6.

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