Thank you to everyone who joined us October 28th 2023 for our Annual Bentonville Fall Festival!
With beautiful weather (although a little hot in the afternoon), our more than 1,300 visitors and dedicated volunteers and staff alike enjoyed the day full of educational activities, historic demonstrations, wagon rides, live music, good food, and much more! The Bentonville site staff would like to extend a HUGE thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers, vendors, community members, and fellow site staff who helped make this program a massive success!
Below, take a look at some incredible photographs provided by our good friend Cesar Sanchez, and a brief description of all the interesting demos featured Saturday. Enjoy and stay up to date with many more exciting events and don’t miss next year’s Fall Festival!
One of the most popular demonstrations came from our friend Lucas, representing Historic Edenton State Historic Site. This hands-on activity allowed visitors to make their own section of rope using a 1911 rope making machine.
Our friend Frank from Historic Halifax State Historic Site taught everyone about historic brewing practices using molasses.
Nelson from Historic Bath brought a small forge and showed how historic blacksmiths created objects out of iron.
Our friend Andy from CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretive Center in Kinston talked about preserving and pickling foods with plenty of excellent examples.
In addition to these incredible demonstrations from our friends at sister historic sites, our friends from the Tar Heel Civilians brought many more historic demonstrations including medicine, cooking, spinning and weaving, cornhusk dolls, and more! Check it out:
People in the past did not just work all the time, they played and performed music. We had two different live music performers playing throughout the day! On one side of the site, the Huckleberry Brothers Band provided us with old time music including banjo, guitar, fiddle, and more. On the other side, the Waterbound Dulcimers played dulcimers and other instruments together. Music is a vital part of our cultural history and we were so excited to show some of that off at Fall Festival!
In addition to all of these excellent historic demonstrations, visitors were able to have a full, fun day with other crafts, activities, food trucks, and tables from our many wonderful community partners. Community partners included fellow historic sites Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Fort Fisher, Somerset Place, and the Collections Branch of Historic Sites, as well as Johnston County Visitors Bureau and JoCo Grows, Johnston County Beekeepers, Johnston County EMS, and Wake Audubon.
Thank you again to everyone who helped and everyone who visited! Check out more photos in the gallery below and don’t miss our candlelight Christmas program December 2nd!
Thanks for reading and we’ll see you December 2nd!