The City of Richardson is turning 150 years old in 2023, and various events are planned throughout the first six months of the year to celebrate the occasion.
The celebration’s main event will be held on June 24 in historic downtown Richardson. The festivities will include music performances, speeches from city leaders, and a birthday cake for the city, Parks and Recreation Director Lori Smeby told Community Impact.
As part of the main celebration, a time capsule buried in 1973 during Richardson’s 100th anniversary will be dug up, and the contents displayed. A new time capsule will also be buried to be extracted after another 50 years.
Aside from the June 24 event, various community organizations have plans to honor the city’s sesquicentennial.
The Richardson Animal Shelter is promoting an adoption drive through the end of June to find homes for 150 dogs and cats.
The Richardson Public Library will host an event each month through June to commemorate the anniversary. Among them is an April 15 event where residents can bring historical photos of the city to the library to be scanned and added to a collection.
The city is also asking each resident to give 150 minutes of community service, with the goal of 150,000 minutes of community service being completed by July.
The city has created a website, https://richardson150th.com, to keep residents updated on all the planned ways to commemorate the anniversary.
The website also tells the city’s history from the very beginning, from when settlers began arriving in the area in the 1840s. Richardson was officially chartered on June 26, 1873.
Other notable moments in Richardson’s history include Texas Instruments opening its headquarters on the city’s doorstep in 1955 and The University of Texas at Dallas opening in 1969. Those institutions attracted several telecommunications firms, including MCI (since purchased by Verizon), leading to the Chamber of Commerce dubbing Richardson the “Telecom Corridor.”
Dr. Steven Butler, a historian and president of the Richardson Historical Society, explained to The Dallas Express he hopes residents can participate in the celebrations and gain a newfound appreciation for the city that “grew out of practically nothing to become one of the biggest small cities in Texas.”
“Historical preservation is one area where we have fallen short,” Dr. Butler suggested. “A lot of other cities have done a lot better job, you know, like Plano, Allen, Dallas, Garland, and Mesquite. I think Richardson needs to do a little better in that area, and I certainly hope that this sesquicentennial will lead to that.”