The nation will celebate 250 years Saturday with Independence Day.

Bonnder Springs will have a fireworks display Thursday, while Basehor and McLouth have events slated for Saturday.

Bonner Blast will be 6-10 p.m. Thurdsay at Centennial Park, 126 Cedar St. in downtown Bonner Springs. There will be a food truck festival, fireworks and live music. The fireworks display will start at 9:45 p.m.

Basehor’s Red, White and BOOM! celebration will be 6 p.m. Saturday at Field of Dreams, 14333 Fairmount Road. The fireworks display will start around 9 p.m. There also will be food trucks.

McLouth, meanwhile, will celebrate America’s 250th birthday starting at 3 p.m. Saturday at Prairie Park. There will be a bounce house and obstacle course, Ree of Sunshine face painting, Gardner’s Leatherworks a children’s patriotic bicycle parade (4:30 p.m.) and a perofrmance by the McLouth Community Band. Fireworks will start at dark around 9:45 p.m.

In Tonganoxie, anyone is welcome to shoot off fireworks in city limits from 9 a.m.- 11 p.m. through Saturday.

Though Tonganoxie is not having a formal celebration, the Tonganoxie Community Historical Society will be having a reading of the Declaration of Independence on Wednesday, July 8, at Gallagher Park.

The document was signed on July 4, 1776, but it would take several days for colonists to hear or read the document.

TCHS will celebrate the first reading of the Declaration of Independence by Col. John Nixon, who read the document on July 8, 1776, on the State House Lawn in Philadelphia.

TCHS will have various residents participate in the public reading at 5 p.m. Wednesday, July 8, at Gallagher Park, 301 S. Main St. in Tonganoxie.

Tonganoxie will join other communities across the nation in an initiative led by the Hawaii America 250 Commission in reading the Declaration of Independence at 5 p.m. central standard time that day.