A crowd of revelers celebrated Independence Day with fireworks, food and fun at the Ramona July 4th Family Picnic & Fireworks Show. A group of seventh-graders from Olive Peirce Middle School were mostly anticipating spending time with their friends at the start of the event held at the back of their campus.

Known now as a day of patriotism and enjoying time off from work, the Fourth of July began the journey to becoming a quintessential American holiday in 1776, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Presque Isle’s restored one-room schoolhouse hosted a fitting Fourth of July celebration: a reading of the Declaration of Independence, crafted 249 years ago,