Orange Bowl Parade
The first Orange Bowl parade was held on January 1, 1936. It was part of a festival intended to attract tourists and support the University of Miami football team. It featured 26 floats and eight bands. The parade, which bumped along from Biscayne Boulevard to Southwest 12th Avenue, was held every year except three during World War II. In 1939, bleacher seats cost 55 cents and box seats were $1.10. The first televised parade was in 1949 by Miami’s first TV station, WTVJ. In 1958, the event was beamed to the entire nation, a powerful tool that tourism officials have banked on ever since. By 2001 the spectacle that once attracted 500,000 people to Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard could not lure even half that number so after seven decades of lights, music and swagger the parade was cancelled.
