An estimated crowd of 1,000 plus were on hand for the opening night of Sundown Salute in downtown Junction City Wednesday.

Christian bands Run With It and Unspoken kicked off the four-day celebration.

It was a homecoming for Run With It frontman Miguel Caraballo, who grew up in Junction City but moved to Kansas City about nine years ago. He said he jumped at the opportunity to come back to his hometown.

“I was just excited, because I remember coming to Sundown Salute all the time, even my family and I we’ve moved out the Kansas City and we’ve been out there for a long time now, but we would still come back for the 4th of July just to come to Sundown Salute because it was a lot of fun,” said Caraballo. “I was like “We get to play this? This is awesome!” So it was a blast.”

Wednesday night also featured the free hot dog feed put on by the Junction City Fire Department. This year the JCFD grilled up 1,000 hot dogs and handed them out to the first 500 people. It took just 40 minutes for them to hand out every hot dog.

Day two of Sundown Salute kicks off Thursday at 11 a.m. with the All Star Stunt Dogs Challenge along 5th Street next to Heritage Park. At noon Brian Wendling – Juggler will perform in the Heritage Park Bandstand. Also at noon will be the Russ Leno Master Watermelon Carver along 5th Street and the Kids Zone at 5th and Jefferson open up.

The Ottaway Carnival opens at 6 p.m. Thursday and the concerts on the main stage feature country bands State Line Drive at 7 p.m. and Shawn Gerhard-Tribute to Garth Brooks at 8:30 p.m..