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When Mary and Henry Watkins arrived in Naples in 1949, they brought with them a new tradition — fireworks!

“My husband’s family owned a fireworks factory in Indiana,” recalls Naples’ first lady of hospitality. “There weren’t any fireworks displays here, or if there were, they were minimal. So we just did our own thing. Every year, he’d shoot fireworks off the beach in front of house.”

It was a time when alligators outnumbered people in Collier County, and no one dared go outside without a personal flyswatter to fight off the mosquitoes, but still the crowds turned out to see her husband’s fireworks displays.

Henry set off really big fireworks, according to Watkins. She said he was always careful to clear the beach and would never let anyone help him because of the danger. “He was a pioneer,” she said. “He had to get city permits and county permits. He kept it up until the Jaycees took over.”

The Jaycees started their own version of the Big Bang Theory for the all-American holiday in 1964 that involved the Naples Pier, fleets of spectator boats and lots of gun powder.

“They do a great job, although I don’t appreciate the radio station choreography. There’s enough noise and racquet going on without that,” said Watkins, whose home is two blocks south of the Naples Pier. “It’s kind of fun to get the full brunt of what’s going on.”

Her first year as a full-time Naples resident was also the first year of the Swamp Buggy parade. “It started in front of the old Naples Hotel on Third Street South,” she recalled. “I can’t remember the Fourth of July parade that year, but surely there must have been one. Naples has always been a parade sort of town.”

There are those who disagreed including John Pulling, who once said there weren’t enough people around Naples in those early Julys to add up to a parade, and Kappy Kirk, niece of the late Tommie Barfield and now Marco Island’s oldest resident, who doesn’t remember any parades, just day-long family outings filled with splashing, swimming and picnicking on the beach.

In fact, the first news account of a parade on Marco Island was in 1977 and in downtown Naples, it was 1978, when a colorful history of feuds over outlawing firecrackers and debates about whether high school bands would, should or could march in parades, began under the never-ending threat of rain.

Since then, Naples has seen better years and not-so-great years of parades, fireworks displays and the occasional beauty pageant. Despite a city ban on all fireworks on the beaches and in the parks — including sparklers; despite one year when horses weren’t permitted in the parade; despite money woes and loss of sponsors; and despite a couple palmetto-pounders that threatened a fireworks washout, the enthusiasm of residents and visitors alike may have waned on occasion, but never fully disappeared.

In 1988, saying Fourth of July parades shouldn’t be financed by taxpayers, and citing losses resulting from non-collection of entry fees, city fathers decided to cancel the parade.

In less time than it takes to say “red, white and blue,” Golden Gate took up the cause and held a parade along the parkway. That effort ran afoul of the Collier County Veterans Council, which withdrew its sponsorship the following year saying the group was unable to get high school bands to participate and that they had lost $2,000 on the deal.

In 1990, Golden Gate Civic Association president Tim Constantine said attitudes toward having a parade were somewhat lackadaisical. “We can do Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades, but we wouldn’t have either without the Fourth of July,” he said.

With community contributions of everything from lumber and insurance money to 1,000 U.S. flags to line the parade route, the Vietnam Veterans of Collier County stepped up to keep a parade on the march with some 65 units that year.

By ’91, Naples had reclaimed the parade in a show of patriotic fanfare as the city adopted the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and some 50 soldiers were housed in the Naples High School gymnasium. A record 13,000 people lined the parade route to pay tribute to the county’s own Operation Desert Storm Veterans.

In yet another move to save money, Naples city fathers scotched the parade idea — again — in 1992 in favor of an old-fashioned picnic gathering at Cambier Park featuring patriotic ceremonies, entertainment, contests, food and visits by bevy of state and federal elected officials.

After the No-Name Storm of 1993 revealed deteriorated wood pilings and organizers had to use a barge in lieu of the half-torn-up Pier for launching a fireworks show, the spirit of the day was still evident with or without a parade, although momentum was building to reinstate the event.

“Two years without a Fourth of July parade… I think that’s a really terrible thing,” said City Councilman Ron Pennington, a U.S. Navy Veteran. He was able to persuade the city not only to hold a Fourth of July parade, but to sponsor it as a public-private endeavor in 1994 for the first time in history and also to hold a public contest to pick a theme for it.

That year, the Jaycees were left to raise $15,000 in about two weeks to pay for the city fireworks show.

Fearing a repeat funding crisis, the Jaycees packed their orange vests and left the city, ending a 34-year run, after Collier County commissioners agreed to become a major backer for a fireworks display at Lake Avalon in Sugden Regional Park on East U.S. 41. The Jaycees still produce the extravaganza, but their 11-year history hasn’t been without glitches.

Days before its second pyrotechnic production at the park, the Jaycees pitched VIP tents for the Friends of the Jaycees at Sugden Park, little knowing they were locating it in a storm swale. Of course, torrential downpours dropped about seven inches of rain in the 48 hours preceding the fireworks, leaving the Jaycees’ special guests standing not only in ankle-deep water, but with walking catfish — walking — among their legs!

Sadly, things turned ugly in 2003 when a truck hauling some $50,000 worth of explosives destined for East Naples and Bonita Springs, blew up at Lovers Key State Park. Both communities reeled, forced to cancel the evening celebrations while learning that five people had been killed in the blast.

Bonita Springs banned subsequent fireworks displays, but the Naples Jaycees came back at New Year’s with an encore. Meanwhile, the city of Naples joined forces with numerous corporate sponsors to continue the 50-plus-year-old tradition of fireworks on the beach.

Jaycee’s Lisa Douglass summed up, saying, “I can always remember my family and the Jaycees doing something for the community on the Fourth of July. As a child, I sold glow ropes at the Pier to provide back-to-school shopping for underprivileged kids.

“The Fireworks Festival is an all-volunteer event when 35 or 40 people come out — on a holiday — to do something everyone else can enjoy. It’s not just a way to celebrate our independence, but it’s a way to celebrate doing something for others. It’s the American way.”