Homecoming parade: Crowds throng Kirkwood in downtown Bloomington for return of IU alums

Our fair hamlet was the scene of considerable merriment on Friday evening as the students and friends of the Indiana University took to Kirkwood Avenue for procession down our most storied thoroughfare. 

The occasion of such enthusiasm was the anticipation of a foot ball contest the following day. The sport, which has gained in local popularity in the last year, allows for 11 men on each side to take the field at any given moment, in an effort to push an egg-shaped leather ball over a designated line of demarcation.

It will be the big men from the University of Minnesota who line up on Saturday against our own eleven. The Indiana men will endeavor to vanquish these visitors from the north, who have chosen for their mascot a humble burrowing beast of the prairie.

In the glorious procession down Kirkwood on Friday, the university marching band, resplendent in its bright uniforms, furnished a lively succession of martial tunes, to the evident satisfaction of the citizenry assembled along the roadway.

The procession made its way eastward toward the Sample Gates, where the university grounds welcomed the returning sons and daughters of Indiana beneath an autumn leaf canopy of brilliant yellows and oranges, a fitting backdrop to the crimson uniforms of the marching band. The strains of “Indiana, Our Indiana” echoed from the red brick pavement, stirring the crowd as they have done since the melody was first heard on campus more than a century ago.

There was much cheering, waving of hands and general good fellowship, the entire affair having been conducted in a spirit befitting the dignity of the institution, with occasional outbursts of youthful exuberance, even from those whose youthful days lie in the distant past.

It was, by all accounts, a capital display of college loyalty.

Photos: IU Homecoming Parade 2026

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