04/27/2026
The history of Clean Up Days in Dover and the community pride!
Every spring, Dover gets a chance to do what it has done for generations: shake off the winter, clean up the streets, and show a little pride in the place we call home.
Long before “Power of an Hour,” before Dover Pride Clean Up Day, and before modern trash and recycling programs, Dover had a spring ritual that, after a long New England winter, the city needed to clean up, clear out, and take pride in itself again.
That tradition began in 1913, when Dover tried its first official “cleaning up week,” inspired by similar efforts in other New England cities. It was meant to remove the refuse, rubbish and winter debris that had accumulated around the city. The experiment worked. During that first week, Dover collected 88 loads of rubbish from neighborhoods across the city.
And people noticed.
By the 1920s, the effort had grown dramatically. Hundreds of loads were hauled away during annual spring campaigns. The Board of Health, which oversaw these efforts at the time, promoted the idea with the slogan, “Get the habit and keep up the habit.” The message was practical, but also civic-minded: clean yards, clean streets and clean neighborhoods made Dover healthier, safer and better.
That is part of what you see in the images here.
There’s a 1934 Board of Health ad for Spring Clean-Up Week, when the city was still treating clean-up as a public health effort. There’s a 1965 photo of city officials kicking off another annual clean-up week, with Public Works Director Ray Bardwell, Recreation Director Dennis Fecteau, Mayor Walworth Johnson, and others, literally putting a little “elbow grease” into the cause. And there are photos from more recent Power of an Hour and Dover Pride Clean Up events, showing that the tradition is still very much alive.
The tools may have changed. The city has changed. But the idea has not. Dover looks better when we all help. It feels better, too.
This weekend, Don’t Trash Dover and the City of Dover are hosting the third annual Power of an Hour community cleanup on Saturday, April 25. Volunteers will gather by ward at 9:15 a.m., clean from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., and help make a visible difference in just one hour. Power of an Hour info:
https://www.dover.nh.gov/government/city-operations/community-services/waste-recycling/dont-trash-dover/
Then, on Saturday, May 2, Dover Main Street will hold its annual Dover Pride Clean Up Day from 8 a.m. to noon, with volunteers helping spruce up downtown and other areas of the city. Dover Pride Clean Up Day info and registration: https://www.dovermainstreet.org/all-events/dover-pride-clean-up-day
For more than a century, Dover has understood that spring clean-up is about more than picking up litter. It is about pride of place.
So grab gloves, bring a rake or litter picker if you have one, and be part of a very Dover tradition.
Let’s "get the habit, and keep up the habit."
