It would have been "unthinkable," Afton Mayor Richard Bend said, to cancel one of Washington County's most popular summer events just because the rebuilt St. Croix Trail downtown didn't yet have a final coat of asphalt.
Or because new boulevards weren't yet planted, or side roads remained in various states of reconstruction.
"Never. We never even considered it. How could Afton never have its Fourth of July parade?" the mayor asked.
And so it happened. Afton, population about 2,900, surely grew in size tenfold as paradegoers swarmed over the unfinished street and sidewalks. Even the toe-stubbing curbs, temporarily higher than normal until the final layer of asphalt is applied, didn't dent the celebration.
The makeover of St. Croix Trail, also known as County Road 21, is just one feature of the city's $12.5 million public works project that includes upgrades on 17 miles of side streets, rebuilding the levee along the St. Croix River waterfront, and installing a new sanitary treatment plant to replace individual septic systems that leaked raw sewage into the river.
The joint city-county project is one of the largest in Washington County this summer.
The county's portion — improvements on St. Croix Trail, the main thoroughfare where the parade was held — will be completed in August. Residents told engineers they wanted improved traffic and parking lanes, wider and extended sidewalks through downtown and better pedestrian crossings, which will result in a narrower road that's safer to cross, said Frank Ticknor, a county traffic engineer.
St. Croix Trail "started a long time ago as a gravel road through the village," said County Engineer Wayne Sandberg, and became a sea of patches and overlays over the years.