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A mariachi band entertains the crowd in the 300 block of East Main Street during a past Celebrate Hillsboro festival.

(Michal Thompson/The Oregonian)

This year marks the Hillsboro Civic Center's 10th birthday, and the 10th anniversary of what has since become a yearly tradition: Celebrate Hillsboro, an opportunity for the city to show why it's a great place to live.

The festival, which runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. July 19, has taken different forms over the years – it used to be a multi-day affair, and the annual attempt to break a Guinness World Record has been done away with.

"It has evolved in 10 years," said Iris Ringer of the city's Parks & Recreation Department, who's been tasked with organizing Celebrate Hillsboro.

But the festival, held in conjunction with the Saturday Farmers' Market, has also expanded. This year's event will cover more ground than ever, stretching along East Main Street from First to Fifth avenues – bookended by the Civic Center and another city building celebrating its 10th year: the Walters Cultural Arts Center.

"It's encouraging a whole movement on Main Street," Ringer added. "And now with two-way streets occurring, it keeps growing and changing. The other thing that Celebrate has done...it's encouraged people to come downtown, to reinvent downtown Hillsboro."

The event will be organized into "villages" devoted to sustainability, arts and culture, health and wellness, police and fire, and community.

The sustainability section will be on the Tom Hughes Civic Center Plaza and will feature information on green living. On the Washington County Courthouse lawn, the arts and culture village will offer puppets, juggling, crafts and magicians.

The health and wellness village, presented by event sponsor Tuality Healthcare, will offer free health screenings and wellness tips. The police and fire departments will be on Second Avenue, and the community village – consisting of vendors, food and more – stretches along Main Street.

"We encourage all downtown businesses to join the party," Ringer said.

Musicians and other performers will take three stages – the family stage, the Main Street stage and the youth stage, which will feature the work of the young rockers from Hillsboro's summer Camp Amp. Some of the acts include comedian and juggler Charlie Brown, the African-style ensemble Boka Marimba and Mariachi Viva Mexico.

For the first time, the city will also line Main Street with classic cars and bicycles, and to get from one end of the festival to the other, visitors can take a free ride on a pedicab, or bike taxi, or rickshaw, or whatever you want to call it.

Traffic will be blocked along Main Street from First to Sixth avenues from 5 p.m. July 18 to July 20 at midnight. Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth avenues will also be closed between Lincoln and Washington streets.

-- Luke Hammill