Lake Forest Day returns Wednesday, August 5, with a parade stepping off at 10 a.m. on Western Avenue, a carnival, live music, food, games, and family activities. The celebration falls the same summer the United States turns 250 and two local institutions mark their 50th anniversaries.
American Legion McKinlock Post No. 264 sponsors the event, according to Lake Forest School District 67. McKinlock Post is seeking volunteers, and families can sign up to march in the parade. Contact the American Legion Lake Forest at (847) 234-9870 for details. Carnival hours and admission costs have not yet been announced.
Why This Year Is Different
This year's Lake Forest Day coincides with three milestones: America's 250th birthday and the 50th anniversaries of both the Lake Forest Preservation Foundation and the Ragdale Foundation. Both organizations were founded in 1976, the Bicentennial year.
Local writer Laurie Stein traced that connection in a June 22 essay on LakeForestLove.com. "The annals of such a history-loving community as Lake Forest are punctuated by dozens of milestone celebrations," Stein wrote, connecting the dots from the town's very first national birthday party to the one ahead.
Milestones Past
In 1876, just 15 years after Lake Forest's founding, residents marked the U.S. Centennial with a picnic, fireworks, and competitions in tennis, croquet, and archery. Several families, including the John V. and Charles B. Farwell families and Mr. and Mrs. F.N. Pratt, traveled to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition, where Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone publicly for the first time.
The city's own centennial arrived in 1961. On Saturday, February 18 of that year, more than 1,200 residents packed Lake Forest College's field house for a kickoff dinner featuring boned chicken in champagne sauce, wild rice, and lemon tarts. That summer's Lake Forest Day parade carried the theme "A Century in Review," with historical floats tracing the town's story from covered-wagon days to the jet age.
The Bicentennial's Lasting Legacy
Lake Forest's preservation movement predates 1976. Residents founded the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society in 1972 and launched the campaign that saved the former Gorton School and reopened it as Gorton Community Center in 1974, as Stein noted. The Bicentennial year then saw the founding of both the Preservation Foundation and the Ragdale Foundation, established by Shaw granddaughter Alice Judson Hayes. Ragdale has since supported more than 5,000 artists through its residency programs.
50th Celebrations Ahead
The Preservation Foundation plans to enter a "unique and historic float" in the August 5 parade, according to its winter newsletter. A foundation exhibit opens Thursday, August 20, at the Lake Forest/Lake Bluff History Center and runs through Saturday, September 12.
Ragdale's 50th anniversary exhibit at the History Center opens Friday, September 18, and continues into April 2027. A joint Preservation Symposium, moderated by WTTW's Geoffrey Baer, is scheduled for Saturday, October 17, and Sunday, October 18, at Ragdale and other venues.
The city's 2026–2027 vehicle parking sticker honors the shared milestone, featuring a rare 1917 image of Ragdale drawn by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw himself.
