The first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in New York City in 1924. These vintage pictures show just how much the parade has changed since then.
On Christmas Day in 1924, Macy’s employees rounded up professional bands, extravagant floats and animals from the Central Park Zoo, and marched to Macy’s on 34th Street in the first-ever Macy’s Day Parade. Drawing a crowd of about 250,000 people, the company instantly decided that the parade would be an annual event.
Now the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade draws 3.5 million people to the streets of New York City each year, with an additional 50 million watching from the comfort of their own homes. Go back in time to the see the first-ever animal balloon (Felix the Cat) and catch a glimpse of decades-old parade floats in this vintage Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade gallery.
Animals and employees from the Central Park Zoo made up the first Macy’s parade, which was held in 1924. Source: Vintage Everyday
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In 1925, Santa’s float was a crowd favorite. Source: Vintage Everyday
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Felix the Cat, the first character balloon debuted at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, made his first appearance in 1927. Source: Vintage Everyday
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Tony Sarg---pictured here with one of his creations---was commissioned by Macy’s Department Store to create many of the parade’s earliest balloons. Source: PRINT
A dauchaund balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Source: Latin Business Today
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The Kilgore College Rangerettes perform at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1967. Source: Top Shelf
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In the 1972 parade, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck made their way through the streets of New York to commemorate the first anniversary of the Walt Disney World Resort. Source: Disney
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Pinocchio and his massive nose were literally larger than life in this parade. Source: Ranker
Kiri Picone holds a B.A. in English and creative writing from Pepperdine University and has been writing for various digital publishers for more than 10 years.
Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.
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Picone, Kiri. "24 Fantastic Vintage Pictures Of The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade." AllThatsInteresting.com, November 26, 2014, https://allthatsinteresting.com/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade. Accessed August 22, 2025.
