Independence Day Celebration at the National Infantry Museum
Friday, July 4
11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center will host its second annual community-wide Independence Day celebration on Friday, July 4, 2014. The newly named Freedom Fest will be filled with music, kids’ activities, historical reenactments, food and fun. All day, kids will enjoy bounce houses, face and hair painting, and balloon animals. Parents will also want to get free ID kits for their children through the GaCHIP program.
- The Maneuver Center of Excellence’s Concert Band will kick off the activities at 11 a.m. with toe-tapping patriotic favorites.
- From noon until 2 p.m., the popular MCoE Rock Band will perform.
- New this year is an old-fashioned patriotic parade at 2 p.m., where youngsters are invited to dress up their bicycles, tricycles and wagons – or themselves! – and parade down Heritage Walk. Judges will award prizes for the most creative displays of patriotism. At the end of Heritage Walk is the parade field, where the Silver Wings Command Exhibition Parachute Team will drop in.
- The Krissy Andrews Band will rock the stage at 3 p.m., and live music from The Oneeders will finish up the musical entertainment at 4:45 p.m.
- Local authors Kathy Maggart and Kathie Eidson will be debuting their All-American, patriotic children’s book, The 1947 Freedom Train. They will be in the museum lobby signing the first copies throughout the day.
- Back in front of the museum, re-enactors will fire two large Civil War era cannons twice each hour and pose for pictures with visitors. World War II Company Street and the Memorial Walk of Honor will be open for self-guided tours between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. The IMAX Theatre will be the perfect place to cool off, with alternating screenings of D-Day 3D: Normandy 1944 and We the People.
Visitors can purchase ice cream, barbecue plates, chicken sandwiches, funnel cakes, hot dogs, hamburgers, pretzels, beer and soft drinks from our vendors. The Fife & Drum restaurant and the IMAX concessions stand will be open for diners who’d rather stay indoors.
The museum’s activities will end at 6 p.m. Visitors will be encouraged to head to Phenix City for a concert in the amphitheater and fireworks following at dark.
