Tens of thousands of people lined Lake Avenue in Charlotte for the St. Anthony’s Day parade every year for decades. The parade was a big part of the festivities, which in later years also included fireworks over Lake Ontario and a “blessing of the fleet” boat parade on the Genesee River. Floats, festival queens, firefighters and marching bands were but a small portion of the land parades, which often took more than an hour and a half.

The events were organized by the St. Anthony Society and Holy Cross Church, where St. Anthony’s Day still is celebrated annually with a Mass and a shrine blessing. But the parade, fireworks and more are now just a thing of the past, done in by drunken rowdiness that led one organizer to say “I created a monster.”