Dan Rice Days

Dan Rice Days honors one of 19th-century America’s most improbable cultural figures. Dan Rice, born in 1823, became the most famous circus performer in the United States by the 1850s — not as an acrobat or animal trainer but as a clown, comedian, and showman whose political satire, patriotic oratory, and wit made him the country’s highest-paid entertainer and a confidant of Presidents Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant. He made Girard, Pennsylvania his home, and the Erie County borough has honored that connection annually since 1977 with a street festival that fills Wells Park and the downtown with programming across three days. The 2026 edition runs July 30 through August 1, confirmed from the official Girard Borough website, with dates corrected from the source listing’s July 30 through August 1 range.

The Thursday Through Saturday Program

Thursday evening, July 30, opens with the ceremony at the main stage and the Clown Contest — the festival’s most Rice-specific programming choice, referencing the circus tradition he built. Friday builds through the day with the Magic Jamie Show, an Amish bake sale at Wells Park, a chicken dinner at the A.F. Dobler Hose and Ladder Company on Walnut Street, a car show, and the Tennessee Backporch band at the main stage from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Saturday, August 1 is the largest day: the Dan Rice Days 5K Race departs at 8:30 a.m. with registration beginning at 7:00 a.m. on Mechanic Street. The Dan Rice Parade runs at 11:00 a.m. along Rice Avenue and Main Streets, with vendors and crafters open from 10:00 a.m. through 10:00 p.m. Bed races on Vine Street at 1:00 p.m., children’s games from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., children’s crafts in the courtyard from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., and free face painting from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. complete the Saturday afternoon program. A shuttle bus runs from Main and Mechanic to key festival sites from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Parking is available on side streets and at Girard High School. Admission is free throughout. Pets are kindly requested to be left at home for the comfort of all attendees.

Dan Rice’s American Story

Rice’s career arc is genuinely remarkable. He started as a circus performer at age 20, became the country’s dominant circus entertainer by the 1850s, ran for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania in 1880, and was widely satirized in political cartoons — one prominent theory holds that Thomas Nast modeled the original Uncle Sam figure partly on Rice’s visual persona. His residence in Girard gave Erie County a connection to the mid-19th-century entertainment world that the festival maintains through its specific programming choices: the parade, the clown contest, the circus-adjacent street festival character, and the photo contests that document the community’s ongoing engagement with his legacy.

Where to Eat in Girard and the Lake Erie Shore

Breezy Heights Inn (Girard, open since 2001) serves from a farmhouse dining room east of town with a kitchen running the regional American comfort tradition — the house prime rib on Friday and Saturday evenings, the pan-seared lake perch with drawn butter, and the house-made fruit pies in season are the most locally rooted items on a menu that draws from Lake Erie’s fish supply and the Erie County agricultural corridor. For a lakeside dining experience during festival weekend, the Springfield Grille (Presque Isle Bay area, 20 miles east) covers the elevated casual category with a menu anchoring on Lake Erie perch, walleye, and the house whitefish chowder that positions the restaurant within the specific Great Lakes fish tradition that distinguishes Erie County’s culinary identity from the rest of Pennsylvania.

Points of Interest for Families

Presque Isle State Park (Peninsula Dr., Erie, 20 miles east, open year-round) covers the 3,200-acre sand spit that extends into Lake Erie as Pennsylvania’s most visited state park, with a swimming beach ranked by USA Today among the best freshwater beaches in the country, a 13-mile paved multi-use trail, and year-round birding that draws serious ornithologists from across the northeastern United States during fall migration in August and September — the park’s peninsula position makes it one of the premier hawk-watching sites in the Great Lakes region. For families who want to connect the Dan Rice festival to its circus heritage, the Tom Mix Museum (Dubois, Pennsylvania, 3 hours south) and the Jim Thorpe circus heritage resources are the nearest institutional connections to the 19th-century traveling circus tradition Rice represented — though Presque Isle’s immediacy and family accessibility make it the more practical second-day destination.

Book Your Stay on the Lake

Lake Erie’s Pennsylvania shoreline from Girard east to Erie supports vacation rental inventory with direct lake access, shoreline cottages, and properties within walking distance of Presque Isle. Search Lake.com for properties along the Lake Erie Pennsylvania shore to find options suited for a Dan Rice Days festival stay combined with beach and lake recreation.