Butte’s annual St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on Friday saw crowds not seen since the start of the pandemic. MTPR’s John Hooks filed this report from the parade this afternoon.
I’m here in Uptown Butte where the St. Patrick’s Day Parade has been going on for about half an hour now. Word from the Butte America Foundation was that there are 66 floats in this year’s parade. There are many thousands of people lined up along the streets here, all wearing some shade of green.
A highlight for people has been the return of the Edmonton Pipe and Drum Band, who have been a fixture of Butte St. Patty’s days since 1989, but are returning this year for the first time since the COVID pandemic.
People in the crowd are making liberal use of Butte’s open container laws. Pretty much every hotel room in Butte is booked tonight, you can’t find anything on AirBnB, and the celebrations promise to continue into the early hours of the morning.