T-R PHOTO BY SUSANNA MEYER —The Albion Rail-Trail Festival Grand Parade kicked off the festivities on Saturday morning, and as it began, people lined Dubuque Street to get a look at the passing vehicles and tractors.

ALBION — The Albion Rail-Trail Festival offered a full day of fun on Saturday, and even a brief downpour in the morning couldn’t slow it down.

The event boasted a myriad of activities including a five-kilometer color fun run, the second annual Albion Rail-Trail dual bicycle ride, a parade, the Iowa River’s Edge Market, a fun zone for kids, live music, and much more on Saturday alone. A Show and Shine car show and a mechanical bull ride competition were held on Friday evening to get the weekend started.

Festival committee member Stacey Keeler said they had been planning the event since the 2021 festival ended, and she was looking forward to bringing it to the community.

“We just feel like it’s good to get back to normal and get people out and about,” Keeler said. “We’re just excited to bring new, different things to the festival every year.”

While the fun run and the bike ride got the Saturday activities started, the parade heading north on Dubuque Street drew large crowds. They lined the street and watched as fire trucks, police vehicles, vintage cars and tractors drove by. Candy was thrown from the windows for people to collect, and a clown waved to people in the crowd.

After the parade concluded, the lines of people headed towards Main Street to browse the market wares, visit the fun zone, or purchase a meal from one of the four food truck options — Ally’s, Clare’s Tenderloins, Chicago Treats, or Smokin’ G’s BBQ.

Later in the afternoon, Albion Mayor Pat Hemming gave an address, Carrie Grimes Barr hosted a public reading of “Leonard & Mildred Play Hide-and-Seek on Grimes Farm,” and Mike Bernard and Grand Marshall performed live music.

Other activities were scattered throughout the afternoon and evening, and fireworks were set off at dusk. Keeler said the main goal of the festival was to get people out and about and to showcase the small but mighty community.

“Albion is so close to Marshalltown, and we just want people to come out and enjoy the day and enjoy what Albion has to offer. It’s a great little town and we want to showcase it to everybody, so we really just want people to come out and enjoy the day, enjoy the band, and enjoy the fireworks,” Keeler said.

Keeler said they expanded their evening fireworks display, got a bouncy house for the kid’s fun zone and brought in more vendors for the market to provide a scaled-up festival, all of which she said would not have been possible without the monetary contributions from their community sponsors.

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Contact Susanna Meyer at 641-753-6611 or smeyer@timesrepublican.com.