UNION COUNTY — Local residents will have no shortage of Fourth of July activities to choose from this year, culminating with the annual fireworks show at Buffalo Peak Golf Course in Union.

The Fourth of July slate features popular traditional events plus new ones including a performance that may spark discussions about an old unsolved mystery in Union.

Festivities will kick off with the annual Imbler Fourth of July Parade, which begins at noon at Seventh Street and travels south down Ruckman Avenue (also Highway 82) to the end of town. The lineup for the parade will start at 11 a.m.

The Imbler Christian Church, 440 Ruckman Ave., will host its annual picnic for the public following the parade. Free hot dogs, watermelon, chips, ice cream and soda will be served.

The focus will then turn to Union, where vendors, for the first time in recent memory, will be selling local crafts and foods on the Fourth of July. The vendors will operate on a portion of Main Street and inside the Little White Church on the south side of Union City Hall from 4-9 p.m. Vendors will be able toset up for no charge, and anyone interested in having a vendor table should call Hugh Johnson at 541-786-6731. Johnson and Sarah Hartley are the co-organizers of the pre-fireworks activities in Union, which are being put on by Union Main Street.

People coming to downtown Union will also have a chance to visit the Union County Museum, 331 S. Main Street, which will be open from noon to 5 p.m. A car show originally planned from 4-9 p.m. on Center Street was cancelled on Tuesday, June 28, according to Johnson.

The Union Lions Club will also be adding to the downtown July Fourth fun by providing rides on the kiddie train, which is pulled by a small vehicle.

At 5 p.m. there will be a reenactment of an attempted bank robbery that took place in Union in October of 1900. The reenactment will be in front of the Union County Museum, which once housed the bank where the robbery attempt was made.

Johnson said three men broke into the bank and then cut a hole through the concrete wall of its vault. The men then unsuccessfully attempted to blow open the safe with nitroglycerine, an explosive liquid. They set off a blast that blew a hole in one of the bank’s walls and shattered one of its windows but did not open the safe.

The men ran out immediately after the unsuccessful blast attempt with nothing,

“They probably worried that they woke people up and thought they would get caught,” Johnson said.

The would-be robbers, who were seen by one person running away from the bank, were never arrested and their identities remain a mystery, Johnson said.

The reenactment, which will take between 15 and 20 minutes, will be performed by Union County residents who volunteered to participate. People will be able to watch the reenactment across the street from the Union County Museum.

This year’s Thunder at the Peak fireworks show will begin around 9:45-10 p.m. at Buffalo Peak Golf Course. Should the golf course draw a large crowd, people will be encouraged to go to a field directly north of the Union High School football field to watch the fireworks. Parking will be available at the site.

The fireworks show will be put on by the Union Chamber of Commerce.