Moroni celebrates Fourth of July
Moroni residents will celebrate the Fourth of July holiday beginning Saturday, June 27, with a softball tournament and then Friday and Saturday, July 3-4, with games, good food, activities and much more.
Events begin July 3, from 5:30 to 8 p.m., with Moroni City’s famous BBQ turkey dinner at Moroni City Hall Park, sponsored by Moroni Feed Company.
July 4, rise and shine early enough to register for the Fun Run at 6 a.m., at Moroni City tennis courts. The run begins at 7 a.m., and a breakfast at Moroni City Park. Remember to bring dishes and utensils. There will be a flag ceremony at 8 a.m., at Moroni City Hall Park.
The ever-popular ping-pong ball drop at 9:40 a.m., will preceed the parade which will begin at 10 a.m., followed by a carnival from 10:30 to 2:30 p.m., at the city center ball park across the street from the activity center. There will be games, prizes and famous turkey sandwiches.
This year, be sure to take in the ugly truck, cool car contest from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and then go take part in the basketball shoot-out in the activity center.
A family trap shoot will be held in the Mudd Bogg Arena at 1 p.m. In the evening beginning at 7 p .m., there will be food and entertainment in the Moroni Center Street Park with a color fest at 8 p.m., and fireworks by Moroni Fire Department at 9:45 p.m.
Moroni was founded by George Washington Bradley in 1859 and was settled by families from Nephi, but it had a real identity crisis. It went through the names Sanpitch, Mego, Little Rome and Duck Springs before Sanpete’s first probate judge named it Moroni after a Nephite Prophet in The Book of Mormon.
Moroni sits midway between Nephi and Manti on the most pronounced “North Bend” of the San Pitch River. Families from Nephi moved there early in 1859. High water in 1862 forced the town’s founders to move away from the river site and spread north over the rolling hills, a setting best seen when approaching Moroni from the south.
For water, they tapped the San Pitch farther east with an intricate and expensive system of canals and ditches that stretched from Mt. Pleasant to Fountain Green’s south fields. Reaching out in all directions, the city was big enough by 1891 to support an “opera house” that seated 1,000 persons. That opera house has been renovated and used regularly today.