Two years into official existence, Scottsdale gave its brand a ceremony. The town’s young Junior Chamber of Commerce took over the annual Sunshine Festival — the parade the Chamber and the Riding Club had first ridden in November 1951 — and staged it that November as the Parada del Sol — “parade of the sun” — sending riders, wagons, stagecoaches, and school bands down Scottsdale Road. “The West’s Most Western Town” had been a slogan and a set of merchants’ storefronts; now it was a performance the whole town starred in, once a year, at street level. A rodeo was added in 1956.
Nobody involved could have known how durable the invention would prove. The parade later moved from November to the cooler glamour of February and grew into one of the largest horse-drawn parades in the world — the city’s longest-running tradition, still riding through Old Town every winter more than seventy years on.
The same year delivered quieter machinery. According to the city’s historic context, the council adopted a zoning ordinance, building on the zoning maps its commission had drawn in 1952, and appointed an Architectural Board “to ensure adherence to a Western theme,” turning what merchants had done voluntarily into something the town reviewed (see the 1950s politics chapter). The Lulu Belle opened on Main Street, the saloon-restaurant whose complaining patrons would inspire the Sugar Bowl five years later. Between the parade and the paperwork, 1953 minted more lasting Scottsdale iconography than any year until the Valley Ho opened in 1956. The first ride down Scottsdale Road has its own page.