Golden Days

On the north side of Foothill Boulevard at Alosta Avenue stands the neon marquee of the former Foothill Drive-In Theater, which ran from 1961 until it closed in 2001. Foothill Boulevard is Route 66. On Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 10 a.m., the Azusa Golden Days parade steps off from that corner. The City of Azusa announced the start as a return to “our original route on Route 66.”

The parade is the center of the 78th annual Golden Days, which runs October 10 through 18, 2026. Its carnival sets up for the weekend, Friday, October 16, through Sunday, October 18, in Azusa Veterans Freedom Park, behind City Hall at 213 E. Foothill Blvd. The hall is a Mission Revival building of 1928, designed by Richard M. Bates Jr. and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 21, 2002. Jeffrey Cornejo, the city clerk and president of the Azusa Historical Society, says of it: “We don’t feel like we work in a building here, we work in a hacienda.” Behind it stand the restored Santa Fe Train Depot, the restored Old Schoolhouse and the 1920s-era Durrell House Museum.

The 2026 celebration is tied to the centennial of Route 66, and its organizers’ motto is “Get Your Golden Days Kicks On Route 66.” In January 2026 city officials unveiled Azusa’s Route 66 Centennial Monument at Foothill Boulevard and Alameda Avenue. With it came a mural by the artist Victor Ving showing the town’s Route 66 landmarks.

Seven clubs, seven eras of the road

Golden Days has long been a week of events put on by the town’s civic and business organizations. In 2026 each of them takes a Route 66 theme, and the city describes the events as running through different eras of the highway.

• Azusa Woman’s Club. The club opens the week on Saturday, October 10, with “Rockin’ It on Route 66,” a scholarship dinner and dance at its clubhouse. Guests are asked to dress in their favorite decade, and there are raffles and a silent auction. After the early-bird price, tickets cost $66.
• Azusa Connects. On Sunday, October 11, the group holds Chalk Fest 5 and turns the sidewalks of City Hall into a chalk tribute to Route 66, with live music through the day.
• Azusa Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s Taste of Town takes its name, “A to Z in the USA: Your Route to Local Flavor,” from a backronym the town sometimes goes by. It is held Wednesday, October 14, in the Memorial Park Gym, with bites from local chefs and restaurants, desserts, music, an auction and a face-painting corner for children.
• Azusa Police Foundation. The foundation holds a “Route 66 Pit Stop for Public Safety,” with comedy, dinner, live music and a cigar bar.
• Other groups. Helping Hand of Azusa runs a bingo night, the Canyon City Runners hold a Route 66 5K, and UMAYPA presents “Dancing Through the Century.”

The theme changes every year. In 2019 the Recreation and Family Services Department and Azusa Golden Days chose “The Golden Heart of Azusa.” The 2025 week went by “Día de los Golden Days.” Two figures, Señor Benjamin and Señorita Citlali, counted down the days to that parade on the organizers’ page. The Los Angeles artist Robert Vargas served as grand marshal. The Woman’s Club built a heritage altar for its “Marigolds and Memories” dinner, and VFW Post 8070 staged a Banda vs. Norteño night. That year the carnival ran at Memorial Park on Orange Avenue, where it had been held for years.

Sheriff Biscailuz leads off, 1949

The Golden Days Parade began in 1949. According to a 2019 account in the Citrus College Clarion, it was designed to bring the community’s organizations together to celebrate Azusa, and the first route ran from Foothill Boulevard down San Gabriel Avenue. Sheriff Eugene W. Biscailuz led that first parade.

The carnival grew from the same idea. In 2019 its coordinator, Adrian Alirez, encouraged local groups to open booths to raise money for their organizations and to take part in the community. That year the carnival offered food vendors, live entertainment, rides and games. Earlier in the week the Woman’s Club held a kickoff of painting and wine, and the chamber’s Taste of Town was held at the Lagunitas Brewing Company.

The calendar has shifted over the years. A 2003 Azusa Pacific University article called Golden Days a commemoration held “every second week of October,” and that year’s parade went down San Gabriel Avenue on October 11. The Clarion wrote in 2019 that the week “starts on the first Saturday of October.” The Route 66 Centennial Monument project places it on the third weekend of the month.

The 2003 parade carried the Azusa High School and Azusa Pacific University marching bands, the City Council, the honored citizens and Mickey Mouse. Street vendors sold balloons, water, snacks and parade horns, which could be heard up and down the route. At Memorial Park on Third Street, car detailers from across Southern California filled the lawn with semi trucks, hot rods and low-riders. One 1950s car had a tray of plastic food attached.

A red Pontiac on San Gabriel Avenue, 2023

The 75th parade was held on Saturday, October 21, 2023. Sue Guarrera, one of two Honored Citizens that year, sat on a striped blanket in the back seat of a red 1950s Pontiac Chieftain, waiting to ride the mile-and-a-half route down San Gabriel Avenue. She admitted to the Pasadena Star-News that she had not practiced her wave. “I’d much rather be working, seating people in the grandstand,” she said. She and her husband Joe, who drove the car, had helped run the parade for 50 years. “What keeps this going is so many old families who have so much history here,” she said, as the crowd called out “Happy Golden Days!” “Our memories keep us coming back.”

More than a thousand people set up along the route with coolers and wagons. They watched marching bands, color guards, Scout troops, folklorico dancers, equestrian units, sports teams and car clubs, more than 85 entries in all. Some came from as far as Cerritos, Downey, La Puente, Montebello and Lake Arrowhead. Many in the crowd wore cowboy hats or Dodgers caps and cheered for the grand marshal, the Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela. Max Arteaga, owner of Max’s Mexican Cuisine, rode with him as civic grand marshal. Sheriff Robert Luna served as honorary grand marshal, 74 years after Biscailuz. That year Azusa also marked the 125th anniversary of its 1898 incorporation, as noted by the city historian, Jeffrey Cornejo Jr., who also chaired Golden Days.

The other Honored Citizen, Leonard Garza, was 94. After the parade he sat under a blue canopy with five generations of his family. He was the last surviving member of the group that founded The Helping Hand of Azusa, a charity he and 19 friends started in 1969. “We were sitting on the porch and trying to figure out how to help a friend of ours who got sick, that’s how it started,” he said.

Farther along the route, Mayra Rico, president of the Azusa Rotary Club, sat with seniors in a section the city had reserved for them. “They were excited cheering all the groups,” she said. Mark Gonzales, the city’s retired recreation superintendent, was still volunteering at what he called his hometown’s version of the Rose Parade. “This is my 39th parade,” he said. “You know why I do it, what I love most about it? The families, seeing the families and the kids enjoying everything.”