Nevada City ready to put on a colorful good time at annual Mardi Gras celebrations

Celebration is coming this weekend in Nevada City for the 28th annual Mardi Gras Parade and street fair.

It’s not New Orleans, but the pre-Lenten holiday will get the colorful small-town treatment Nevada City is known for.

The town’s Mardi Gras tradition has its roots in Joe Cain Day, a holiday held the Sunday before Fat Tuesday to mark the revival in the southern states of Mardi Gras-style celebrations during reconstruction.

The Nevada City Chamber of Commerce began to sponsor the local Mardi Gras celebration as a way to boost business and bring the community together, according to Cathy Whittlesey, the chamber’s executive director. Since then, celebrating Mardi Gras in Nevada City has become a seasonal treat for locals and Gold Country day-trippers alike.

Whittlesey said the Chamber of Commerce sponsors the celebration to draw people to the area during the month of February. Much of the party centers around the town’s unique identity as a laid-back getaway full of gold-rush architecture, history and lore.

“We really want to invite people into town to experience it. Into our shops and our restaurants,” Whittlesey said.

This year’s parade and street fair will happen Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and include vendors selling local arts and crafts as well as Mardi Gras-themed items. The vendors will set up on North Pine and Commercial streets, “with plenty of room for families with children and baby strollers,” Whittlesey said. “It’s very family friendly.”

The parade will begin at 2 p.m. and move down Broad Street into the center of town. Attendees can expect to see “colorfully masked and costumed entrants who will ride, march and dance through the crowd handing out beads, trinkets, bangles and more,” Whittlesey said. “The walking troupes are all very enthusiastic and colorful, with all kinds of costumes and everyone is encouraged to wear their own festive Mardi Gras attire.”

Prominent locals like Nevada City’s KVMR radio host Mikail Graham will preside over the parade as Mardi Gras royalty. Graham is the grand marshal this year.

Graham’s family history in Nevada City dates back to the 1850s. A musician and community activist, Graham hosts a yearly holiday charity event called A Night of Giving in Nevada City that raised over $78,000 to support homeless outreach last December.

“The parade is really just a fun time, a nice excuse for a winter street party,” Graham said. “It’s just fun to preside over and be there, and be a part of the gang,”

Parade entries include the California Consolidated Drum Band, Jazzercise, Brazilian Dancers, The Merry Widows, E Clampus Vitus and the Marine Corps League of Nevada County, according to a Chamber of Commerce news release.

“If you’ve been to Nevada City you know how much fun it is to come party up here,” Graham said. “If you haven’t, it’s a great reason to come enjoy a good beer, a good party, a great parade and have some fun with people who really know how to put on a good time and get on with one another.”

A related event, The Mardi Gras Masquerade Ball, will be held the night before on Saturday at the Miners Foundry Cultural Center in Nevada City, which will include costumes, dancing and Louisiana-based band The Revelers.

If you go

Nevada city’s Mardi Gras

When: 2 p.m. Sunday, street fair starts at 11 a.m. and runs until 4 p.m.

Info: https://www.nevadacitychamber.com/nevada-city-events/mardi-gras/

Details and tickets for the Masquerade Ball can be found at: https://minersfoundry.org/event/mardi-gras-w-the-revelers/