LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – What began as a welcome-home celebration for troops returning from Desert Storm has grown into the largest free festival in Texas, drawing roughly 100,000 people to downtown Lubbock each Fourth of July.
The first Fourth on Broadway was held in 1991.
“The troops were coming back from Desert Storm, and the Downtown Council of Churches wanted to do some kind of an event to celebrate that,” said longtime volunteer Leslie Cranford. “And so they concocted this big idea of having the celebration down Broadway.”
Organizers expected around 5,000 attendees at the parade. Cranford says 14,000 showed up.
Creators David Langston and Don Caldwell had a second goal beyond the homecoming celebration.
“It was sort of built to rejuvenate downtown,” Cranford said. “And I think it’s done that.”
Caldwell eventually founded the nonprofit Broadway Festivals Incorporated, shifting the parade route further east and moving festival events to Mackenzie Park.
“Where there was more shade, trees,” Cranford said. “They added all of those daytime things, the fishing, just the daytime concert stages.”
Cranford recalled earlier years when vendors lined the street and a street dance drew crowds.
“My kids were little. They’re in their 30s now, dancing on the bricks over here, just west of the courthouse,” she said.
After he passed in 2024, Caldwell’s absence has been felt in recent years.
“‘25 was a little different, a lot different, because our leadership was gone,” Cranford said. “Don wasn’t with us. And he was such a big driver of the continuity of the event and the creativity of the event. And I cannot say that enough.”
Civic Lubbock, Inc. took over and has hosted the festival the last two years.
Cranford’s connection to the event spans decades, documented in a collection of Fourth on Broadway T-shirts she has kept over the years — some old and frayed, some passed down to grandchildren.
“Keeping those shirts just maybe proves how much this event has come to mean to me,” she said. “And now I have all these memories in these shirts.”
Cranford said she hopes the tradition continues.
“I do see them getting here really early with the little tiny fold out chairs for the kids and they’ve got their umbrellas and the kids have their face painted and they have all the stars and stripes on,” she said. “It’s a fun event. It’s a family event and that’s what we want — to keep continuing that legacy.”
You can learn more on the official site here: civiclubbock.org/july-4th/
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.