(Red flares and fireworks light up Chautauqua Lake during a Fourth of July celebration at Lakeside Park in Mayville, NY.)
Article by Norman Carlson, Chautauqua County Historian:
The following article from the Jamestown Journal describes the origin of the July 4 Ring of Fire flare lighting on Chautauqua Lake. For many years the event has been sponsored by the Chautauqua Lake Association which was chartered in 1953.
I remember when it received more attention and was more rigidly organized than it has been in recent years. The 10 p.m. lighting signal was broadcast over WJTN and some years an airplane over the lake was involved. People gathered at high overlooks to see it happen. The Fredonia Censor reported 100,000 people gathering in 1939. In recent years awareness and participation have been lax or partial and some people have become conspicuously righteous about the smoke and residue pollution.
Flare lighting also takes place on July 3 or July 4 on some other lakes including Conesus and Canandaigua lakes and locally at Cassadaga Lake. The Conesus Lake event, apparently the largest and longest running, originated independently in 1938 and was forbidden during World War II but resumed in 1950. I suspect all the other local traditions are later than ours at Chautauqua.
For a few years, starting in 1906, the flare lighting was tried around the lake on July 4 starting at Chautauqua Institution the day before the season began.
RED FLARES ON THE LAKE JULY 5, 1934
The feature of the Fourth of July display hereabouts was undoubtedly the red flare showing along the shores of Chautauqua lake, timed between ten and ten fifteen o'clock in the evening. It was beautiful and truly inspiring to those who made it a point to see it from vantage points on or about the lake. It may well be made an annual custom and may well be conceived as eventually giving to the event a Chautauqua lake significance such as the famed Chautauqua salute and may bring large numbers of people to the lake just to see it. Credit for the suggestion is properly given to Earle O. Hultquist and the carrying out of the idea to the "Jamestown Chamber of Commerce “ which sponsored it and used its influence to sell the idea to cottage owners and others about the lake. With some more cooperation of hotel managements, groups of Boy Scouts or other workers to fill in the vacant spots and make the placing of the flares uniform and general, another year should see this display one of increased beauty and significance. The whole idea was carried out with very little expense to any single Individual and probably a total expense of no more than $350.
We commend the originator of the idea, the sponsor and all who had a part in it.
