The story
Fairbanks Golden Days in Fairbanks
Golden Days is a week-long community festival held every mid-July in Fairbanks, Alaska, celebrating the city's founding through Felix Pedro's July 22, 1902, discovery of gold on Pedro Creek. Presented by the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce since the tradition began in the early 1950s, it features the largest parade in Alaska, a rubber duckie race, and street fair events across downtown.
Golden Days traces its roots to the early 1950s, when Fairbanks residents began formally celebrating the gold discovery that set the community's growth in motion, with local accounts crediting Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce organizers, and pioneer Kay Kennedy in particular, with starting the tradition around 1951 or 1952.