Manuel Lopez | Staff Illustrator

For many WashU students, Mardi Gras is a rare reason to wake up early on a Saturday. Students travel to downtown St. Louis to party in a crowd — and maybe power through a 3 p.m. hangover. 

While students may spend three or four hours in Soulard, the planning that goes into Mardi Gras reflects 5,000 hours of volunteer work throughout the year.

Despite the widespread belief that the origin of St. Louis’ Mardi Gras is related to the city’s French history, the Soulard parade is less than 50 years old. The tradition started in 1979 when five people threw a house party and decided on a Mardi Gras theme. The celebration has since expanded to include a variety of events hosted throughout January and February, culminating in the Bud Light Grand Parade on March 1, 2025. Social organizations, known as krewes, walk, bike, and ride in the parade, usually fully costumed or towing floats, and they also compete for awards. Per 2023 estimates, 3,000 people will walk or ride in the parade, throwing 15 million beads to cheering crowds of at least half a million.

Matt Reardon is a founding member of the Mystic Knights of the Purple Haze, the most award-winning krewe in the Grand Parade, and has been involved with the growth of the event since its “very early days,” he said. 

In high school, Reardon was a member of an ultimate frisbee team called the Purple Haze, which practiced on WashU’s fields. Some of Reardon’s Purple Haze friends moved south to attend college in Mobile, Alabama — a city that may be home to the U.S.’s oldest Mardi Gras spectacle. When the group of frisbee friends finally reunited, they decided to join the small celebration in Soulard.

Coincidentally, they built their first parade float two blocks from the WashU campus, in the garage of Andy Rennard, Reardon’s friend.

“[Rennard] said, ‘Hey, let’s name it the Mystic Knights of the Purple Haze because that’s sort of Mardi Gras-themed and we’ll be a krewe,’ and there’s no one in St. Louis [who] even really knew what a krewe was,” Reardon said. “We figured out after one year or two years … if we start a few weeks early, we can be the best float in the parade.”

The Mystic Knights raised the bar for floats in St. Louis, both for decorations and, more literally, height regulations. 

“One year we did Jimi Hendrix at Monterey [Pop Festival], where he lights his guitar on fire, very famous thing. … [The float] was 17 feet tall. And you can only have a 13-foot-tall float because the Mardi Gras float goes under a railroad overpass. … We figured out how to use counterweights and put hinges in Jimi Hendrix’s body, and we could fold him down. … We got a 17-foot float,” Reardon said. “They never had a float like that.”

Bonita Leiber — Creative Director of Mardi Gras, Inc. and a volunteer of 35 years — spoke warmly about the ingenuity of the parade’s krewes. “I want to see people have fun. I love to create, and I love to encourage others to create. So I’m always trying to find groups of people and get them revved up to be in the parade and do something fun, something creative, and that makes me smile.”

For Leiber, planning begins in August, when the parade’s theme is chosen. Throughout the year, Leiber collaborates with a committee of five to coordinate the Grand Parade. She works closely with krewes, recruits the Grand Marshal, supports a large team of volunteers on parade day, and ensures that safety standards are kept up-to-date.

“I love starting the parade. I love being out front and having every float go by me and waving at them and telling them how beautiful they look,” she said.

Sometimes, problems arise when the parade gets underway. “I do have one million stories about the trials and tribulations that our krewe has gone through,” Reardon said. “We’ve actually realized we were running out of gas on the parade route once, and we had to have someone run ahead of the float, get a can of gas, and actually add gas to the vehicle while the parade was moving.”

As it turns out, very little can stop the parade. “There was a fire in the parade that stopped the parade a couple years ago,” Leiber said. “But it happened in front of the fire department, and they put the fire out, and the parade went on.” Fire extinguishers, Leiber noted, are now required onboard floats, in addition to other safety measures.

Barring 2020, the parade’s steady growth seems unstoppable. “When I first started [13 years ago], we maybe had only 60 entries, and now I guess up to 97,” Holly Jurgensen, who organizes the judges’ stand and also works at WashU, said. “It keeps getting better.”

Jurgensen’s love for Mardi Gras began at age five, when she watched her dad’s krewe in New Orleans. She is proud to have continued the tradition in her family. “My son is a volunteer. He’s 22 now and he’s the bartender on the stage,” she said. “So now he’s got the bug.”

In her role, Jurgensen recruits the parade’s judges. She invites artistically-minded people from around St. Louis to crown the best krewes each year. A drag queen, a rapper, a PR professional, and a DJ will be some of the St. Louisans judging this year. When the day comes, Jurgensen will don green and purple sequins to direct floats down the route and fling beads to the crowd.

Ever since they started back in 1979, the festivities have become a significant event for the entire city. Mardi Gras, Inc. estimates that the season’s calendar of events generates $20 million in economic activity annually. “[The season] goes on a long time, and it brings a lot of people to St. Louis, so economically, it’s good for a February/March activity,” Leiber said.

Luke Reynolds — the owner of the popular restaurant and bar, Molly’s in Soulard — wrote in a statement that Mardi Gras is “more than just a party.”

“Mardi Gras is, without a doubt, the biggest weekend of the year for us at Molly’s and for Soulard as a whole,” Reynolds wrote. “To put it in perspective, our business does around $6 million in annual sales, and the three days of Mardi Gras events (Taste of Soulard / Pet Parade / Grand Parade) alone bring in $275,000. That’s a huge boost not just for us, but for bars, restaurants, hotels, and all the local vendors who make this event happen.”

A fourth tradition on the Mardi Gras calendar, the annual Mayor’s Ball, gathers revelers on the eve of the parade to raise money for community improvements in Soulard. The Mayor’s Ball has raised over $600,000 since it started in 2003.

Volunteers agree that St. Louis’ largest party has a larger meaning. For Reardon, friendship is what keeps him coming back. “[Mardi Gras is] a reason to see our old friends. … You get older, you get kids, you get different things. I mean, when you leave WashU, you may not see the friends that you know from WashU that much anymore … But this gets us all back together with all those old friends again,” Reardon said. “Here it is, 35 years later, and I’m still looking forward to the parade this year.”