Town Day turns Winchester Center into a daylong reunion

By midmorning, a cluster of Winchester High School field hockey players had spread sticks and cones against a downtown sidewalk, coaxing small children to take a few swings. A few steps away stood a nonprofit’s tent, then a row of vendors, then a youth sports booth.

For a few hours, the town’s many small circles overlapped.

That overlap was the point. The 45th annual Town Day, held June 6 across Main, Mount Vernon and Thompson streets, was less a street fair than what many characterized as reunion, an unofficial start to summer and an afternoon when the parts of Winchester residents usually meet one at a time stood side-by-side.

‘Bringing the community together’

The downtown fair ran from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and drew about 170 exhibitors, said Justin O’Connor, who has been involved with Town Day for about 20 years and once handled its publicity.

He expected roughly 10,000 people, with about 40 of the exhibitors being community groups that rarely share a sidewalk.

“It’s a forum for diversity, and it’s a forum for making things better,” O’Connor said.

The whole thing runs on volunteers, an effort O’Connor likened to the Pan-Mass Challenge, the cycling fundraiser he and Allan Eyden, chair of the Town Day Committee, both work on. Each, he said, takes “a bunch of volunteers together once a year to make something extraordinary happen.”

The once-a-year rhythm has its costs.

“You only get to do it once a year, so learning is slow,” O’Connor said, though he figures Winchester moves faster than most.

Eyden said the original mission was “bringing the community together.”

“I think it’s very inclusive,” he said. “I think there’s a great community spirit here.”

The timing matters: the event catches residents before town empties out for summer after graduation.

The day is family-friendly and free, Eyden said, apart from what visitors buy from vendors.

“The fireworks are free, and that’s because we have some generous corporate sponsors,” he said.

The town makes it easier, he added, crediting the police and fire departments.

“The town is so good to us,” he said.

Roots stretch back to the 1970s

The early version began in the mid-1970s, started by the Winchester Jaycees, or Junior Chamber of Commerce, a group that no longer exists. Organizers describe 2026 as the 45th annual, or 45th consecutive, Town Day; the link between the original 1974-1976 run and the 1982 revival is not fully spelled out.

One sign in Winchester came early, Eyden said: its web address, townday.org.

Decades in, the work has a routine. The committee once met every week with minutes and agendas; now, Eyden said, “everybody kind of knows their job.” He is trying to recruit younger volunteers to keep it that way.

“Some of us are aging out,” he said.

For all its size, the event has stayed recognizably itself.

“It’s grown, but I don’t know if it’s evolved to anything different,” Eyden said.

And on Saturday, Town Day had the look of something Winchester has practiced for decades: shoulder-to-shoulder crowds making their way among booths pressed along familiar downtown streets, children drifting from game to game, teenagers using the day as a meeting place, parents pushing strollers through the crowd and longtime residents recognizing pieces of the town they have known for years.

Dogs were everywhere, too — tiny dogs riding close to their owners’ ankles, larger breeds nosing through the crowd, doodles, retrievers and mixed breeds pausing for attention as families moved between booths. They gave the street fair its own four-legged rhythm.

Memories layer across generations

For Alycia Lacey, 36, the day was layered over the ones she remembers. Her sharpest memory is a dunk tank with teachers, near where an ice cream shop once stood.

“You’d get as much money as you could from your parents to buy all the jewelry that you wanted that you didn’t need,” she said.

As a teenager, she watched the fireworks from the dugout roofs at a local ball field.

“We used to climb on the roofs and watch them,” she said.

She brings her own children now.

“My parents still live here,” she said. “That’s why we’re still here all the time.”

Fraternal twins Evelyn and Addison Cox, both 14, described Town Day as the place they run into friends and people they have not seen in a while.

“I get to see a lot of my friends,” Addison said.

Evelyn said the fireworks were part of what made it stick, and both said the day shows Winchester as a connected town that gives local businesses a way in.

Brynn Henning, a Winchester High School junior helping at the field hockey booth, has come since she was young. She and other students had taken the SAT that morning before coming downtown. She plays on a team riding a strong run.

“We’re in the final four for the last two years in a row,” she said.

As for the crowd filling the streets, her read was simple.

“Everyone wants to be part of the community and celebrate,” she said.

By early afternoon, much of the day still lay ahead: a rubber duckie race at 2 p.m., a dog show at 3 and beer and wine gardens later in the afternoon, with fireworks scheduled for 9:15 p.m.

But the point of Town Day was already plain on the sidewalks, long before any fireworks. Winchester’s many small circles had overlapped, if only for a day.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have photos from Town Day that you would like to share with us, email editor@winchesternews.org with the subject line Town Day.

Will Dowd is a Massachusetts journalist who covers municipal government and community life for Winchester News. He is also the founder and editor of The Marblehead Independent, a reader-funded digital newsroom.