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By W.E. WILKINS JR. EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of two columns about the Yorktown Bicentennial celebration. Tomor row's column will be about the Vic tory Day celebration on Monday. The big celebration of America's independence has ended. It was all over at Yorktown on Monday, when President Reagan and President Mitterand of France addressed an enormous crowd that stretched almost as far as anyone could see. The Yorktown Bicentennial celebration, which lasted from Fri day to Monday, was a worthy con clusion of the long festivities. Yorktown is a small place with a total population of under 500, and the logistics of cramming more than 60,000 people into such a town demanded careful planning. The next problem was how to keep all those people entertained once they were there. Both challenges were surmounted triumphantly. Obviously there was no way to fun nel thousands of automobiles into Yorktown. (Those who remember the celebration of 50 years ago recall vividly the traffic jams both coming and going.) The solution was to set up a bus service with a round-trip ticket charge of $5 from most locations; only the buses and residents with passes were permit ted past checkpoints set up on all roads leading to the town. Amazingly, the buses worked as planned. The debacle at the 1980 Olympic Games at Lake Placid warned ‘the organizers of this celebration of some of the dangers, and they borrowed or chartered nearly every bus within 500 miles, including most of the school buses on the Peninsula. These ran between the parking lots reserved in Williamsburg and other places and the Victory Center, where other shuttle buses were available to all the festival sites. Most people, however, walked most places, for it is less than a mile from one end to the other of the town. Once there, the visitor found a bewildering variety of entertain ment, including the other people, who came in all sizes, shapes, ages and costumes. It was a friendly crowd, in which total strangers stop ped to exchange brief conversation before moving on. One man dressed in a uniform of the Revolutionary period said it was that of a Delaware regiment. Where was the reconstituted unit from? California. They picked a Delaware outfit because there weren't many Califor nia units In the Revolution, he said with a twinkle in his eye. The French — real, contemporary ones — were out in force, with a large delegation of the press ac companying President Mitterand, plus a contingent of sailors from two vessels of the French navy. One often overheard French as people passed by, and the sailors seemed to transcend whatever language pro blems existed as they engaged young women in conversation on the streets. At the Victory Center, at the Park Service headquarters, along the waterfront, at the Nelson House, on the great field where tents had been erected for exhibits, souvenir shops and fast food, everywhere there was more to do than anyone could have time for. At Gloucester Point, in Williamsburg and in Hampton, too, there were activities. In Yorktown itself there were at least four stages where bands, singers, dancers and other entertainers performed throughout the four days. There were four Navy ships plus HMS Ariadne, a British ship, which welcomed visitors, and the longest lines of all queued up for the ride in a Navy launch out, to one of the vessels, an hour’s tour and return. On Monday a stiff breeze straight down the York River made the waters surprisingly choppy, but no one seemed daunted. The lines were long, as they had been all weekend. It was heart-warming to see that the handicapped were provided for. The two permanent buildings are equipped for handicapped persons, and the temporary facilities were almost all erected on the ground, so that access was no problem. One saw many wheelchairs whose owners obviously were enjoying the celebration as much as anyone who was able to walk around the town. The behavior of so many thousands of total strangers thrown together was reassuring. No one seemed to be in a hurry, and if anyone was drunk, disorderly or rude, as some must have been, the occurrence was so rare that it was not evident. The many months of planning paid off in a big way. Surely those who went returned home with happy memories of the Yorktown Bicenten nial celebration, and just as surely, there could not have been a better way to finish our country’s 200th bir thday celebration.
Newspaper Details
Daily News-Record
Harrisonburg, Virginia, US
Wed, Oct 21, 1981
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Carol S.
USA 13 Jul 2026
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