Incredible photos from the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade

Around 3.5 million people attend the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in New York City every year. Fifty million more tune in to watch it from home.

Before it became the national spectacle it is today, the first parade in 1924 was a relatively modest assembly of Macy’s workers, elephants, monkeys, camels, Broadway performers, and small floats.

Take a look at archive photos of Macy’s first parade.

On Thanksgiving morning in 1924, Macy’s procession launched as the Christmas Parade.

Macy’s was not the first company to have a parade like this. In 1920, Philadelphia’s Gimbel Brothers Department Store staged a Thanksgiving parade with 50 people, 15 cars, and a fireman dressed as Santa Claus.

The performers marched 6 miles, starting from the intersection of 145th Street and Convent Avenue in Upper Manhattan.

Source: The New York Times

Approximately 250,000 people attended.

Source: The New Jersey Star-Ledger

The parade featured elephants, monkeys, camels, and bears borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. Live animals made appearances for just two more parades after 1924.

Source: History

In 1927, Marionette maker Tony Frederick Sarg's large animal-shaped balloons replaced the animals. The first flying balloon, filled with air, was Felix the Cat. That year, the event was also renamed the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

Source: Business Insider

In the first parade, some of the floats matched Macy's Christmas window display themes. The participants dressed up like characters from Mother Goose stories, including the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Little Miss Muffet, and Little Red Riding Hood.

Macy's employees wore costumes to look like clowns, cowboys, and knights.

The company threw the parade to draw more holiday shoppers into New York's Macy's, which touted itself as the "world's largest department store" in 1924. It included 1 million square feet of retail space. (The store is only slightly larger today.)

Source: Macy's

The last float, decorated like a sleigh, had a Santa Claus who waved to spectators.

The parade ended at the Macy's store in Herald Square on 34th Street, where the Santa climbed a short ladder resting against a new Christmas window display called "The Fair Frolics of Wondertown." He drew a curtain to unveil it.

The parade became an annual tradition.