County agrees on festival for Cotulla, Encinal

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Under an arrangement recently ratified between the city of Cotulla and the La Salle County government, the annual Fourth of July festival will continue as a shared enterprise, although organization of the event will now alternate between the two entities.
At meetings during February of the Cotulla City Council and the La Salle County Commissioners’ Court, elected officials agreed that a shared-cost arrangement would continue, with each providing $50,000 for the festival.
Expenses cover live bands and a fireworks display by a professional pyrotechnics company. Public admission to the festivals is free. Local vendors host booths offering food and refreshments for sale as well as toys and trinkets, seasonal gifts and handicrafts.
Taking over organization of the event this year, which will include making decisions on what entertainment to book, county commissioners voted on Tuesday, February 13, to hold the festival on Independence Day itself, which falls on a Thursday in 2024, and to hold a second event at the county park in Encinal the following day, Friday, July 5.
Commissioners discussed a number of options before deciding on the date of the celebration, including holding all festivities on the nearest weekend.
The court has also agreed to hold the event at Veterans Park in downtown Cotulla, thereby breaking a recent pattern of rotating the venue between the downtown park, the county fairgrounds, and Martinez Park, which is owned jointly by city and county.
Safety concerns regarding fireworks damaging the historic county courthouse and projectiles landing on nearby homes had prompted elected officials to consider alternate venues for the festival in previous years. Commissioners had agreed in 2023 to continue the venue rotation.
The La Salle Fire Rescue has been consulted in the past over fire safety measures related to fireworks being launched at each of the venues, and firefighters have been present with tanker trucks at each of the displays, ready to respond in the event of fires igniting dry brush surrounding the fairgrounds and Martinez Park, and to watch for burning debris landing on private property in downtown Cotulla.
The city of Cotulla maintains a ban on fireworks by the general public inside city limits under an ordinance that was authored by a previous administration.