City Parks crews are busy decorating downtown Rapid City and various parks for the upcoming holiday season.
Crews have been working in Halley Park, putting up tree and gazebo light decorations and also in the downtown area, connecting garland strings of decorations. The process to decorate the downtown streets, poles and areas such as Wilson Park and Founders Park continues this week.
City Parks Division Manager Scott Anderson said crews take advantage of nice weather to get an early start decorating areas for the holidays and having areas ready for holiday events such as the annual Wilson Park Tree Lighting event and the Festival of Lights Parade.
Anderson advises the public to drive with caution on downtown streets where crews are working to put up decorations.
“Our crews look forward to this time of year, getting the downtown areas and the major parks decorated prior to the holiday events the week of Thanksgiving,” said Anderson. “They take a lot of pride in helping to get the community ready for the holidays. We take advantage of the warm weather and try to decorate what we can prior to the Veterans Day holiday. It’s always nice when we can decorate without having to put up with bitterly cold temperatures or snow.”
Decoration efforts continue after Veterans Day as crews transition many of the downtown poles, exchanging veterans banners with holiday decorations.
This holiday season, the public can again expect to see snowflake pole decorations, banners and street lines along Main Street and candy cane pole decorations, banners and street lines on St. Joseph Street from East Boulevard to West Boulevard. Poinsettia decorations will adorn poles on Kansas City Street from Fifth Street to Mount Rushmore Road with poinsettia banners hanging on Kansas City Street from Fifth Street to West Boulevard. Happy Holidays banners will be seen on Quincy Street from Fifth Street to West Boulevard. Crews will also be decorating the gazebo and west picnic shelter area at Canyon Lake Park. If there are enough supplies, the trees at the Founder’s Park shelter area may get some lights.
The annual Wilson Park Tree-Lighting Ceremony is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 26 and the annual Festival of Lights parade and activities are scheduled downtown on Saturday, November 30.
Most of the lights and decorations will remain up past New Year’s Day with the downtown tree decorations remaining up through the Black Hills Stock Show.
