The Ute Mountain Casino and Hotel put on its annual fireworks show Tuesday night in Towaoc and threw in food vendors, carnival rides and music.
The celebration included free parking for the day of fun. The band Fenders II played from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the King of Queens took over the stage until 9 p.m. Fireworks followed at dusk.
Mancos, Dove Creek, Cortez and Telluride also planned celebrations on July Fourth.
Cortez will host fun events in Parque de Vida on the Fourth ahead of the fireworks display.
From 4:30 p.m.-6 p.m., Four Corners Community Band will hold a concert in Centennial Park.
At 7 p.m., live band Flashback will play in Parque de Vida until the fireworks begin about 9 p.m.
Cortez Fire Protection District will be in charge of the fireworks display again this year.
Capt. Staton Jeter spoke with The Journal about the fireworks display this year.
“We now have a StarFire Controller. Each (firework) gets wired up individually to the cue board that goes to this controller that we’re able to wire up to with speaker wire and then run it from a safe distance,” Jeter said.
A cool feature of this type of controller is the ability to run a scripted show that syncs the fireworks to music. They hope to work up to doing shows like these in future years, Jeter said.
