Saturday's wet weather couldn't prevent people with a passion for the history of St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood from reconnecting.
Though thunderstorms canceled the morning parade, once the rain receded, community members still came out to the 36th annual Rondo Days Festival.
The yearly event celebrates the Rondo neighborhood, a predominantly black community that was largely bulldozed for construction of Interstate 94 in the late 1960s. The freeway separated neighborhoods, displaced residents and led to the closure of black businesses.
Lynn Wright was 13 when the construction began. She remembers the loss of a grocery store, a barbershop and a hardware store.
"What's so sad is it moved all the people we grew up with on the other side of the freeway out of the neighborhood," Wright said.
Wright has been to all but one Rondo Days celebration. The event reunites her with others from the area and serves as an avenue to educate young people.
"It's important for these kids to know what Rondo was about … they don't have any idea about Rondo, what it did to our community," Wright said.
Tim Simmons isn't quite as old as I-94. But he's lived in Rondo his whole life, and he too has seen the community change.