LIGONIER, Pennsylvania — This weekend, the Ligonier Diamond (the picturesque park situated in the middle of this sleepy little town of 1,500) will be filled with craftsmen, artisans, food tents, reenactors, and people visiting from 100 miles in all directions. They are all here to enjoy the annual Fort Ligonier Days, a three-day fall festival commemorating the battle fought here during the French and Indian War.
Local farms’ freshly harvested fields will serve as parking lots to accommodate the large crowds that descend here to experience the history, the festivities, and the mile-long parade.
Whether you live here, own a business in town, or are just attending as a tourist, everyone benefits from the long weekend, explained Mayor Ormond “Butch” Bellas. “Vendors get to sell their crafts or food. The visitors get to experience the music, parade, and history,” said Bellas. “It is a fresh opportunity for the businesses in town to remind everyone coming here all we have to offer year-round.”
Almost anywhere you go outside of major cities in the United States, you are likely to find signs (many professionally made but many not) directing you to attend some small town’s annual festival.
Two weeks ago, just outside of Stahlstown, the annual Flax Scutching Festival was held in this Westmoreland County village — the nation’s second-oldest scutching festival. Attend it and you will actually get to find out what flax scutching is (there is a demonstration). You will also hear live bluegrass music, drink fresh apple cider pressed by the local Boy Scouts, eat fresh locally made delicacies, buy a fiddle if you want, and enjoy the breathtaking views from its perch on Chestnut Ridge.
Last weekend in Delmont, Pennsylvania, the annual Apple Festival introduced thousands of young people to that small Westmoreland County town.
Such events bring artisans to town, such as Nautilus Creations’s Mimi Antonetti, who travels to several festivals across Pennsylvania, Ohio, western New York, and Ohio to sell her unique chain-link jewelry. She not only makes her living at these festivals, but she is also inspired by them. “The whole atmosphere inspires my creativity,” she says.
These events aren’t just fun — they also nurture civic pride. You can usually find one anywhere within a 100-mile radius of your home on any given weekend year-round.
Sixty miles east, in Bedford, the first two weekends of October are dedicated to the annual Fall Foliage Festival. This year, the original frontier town that was built around a fort that was an important military post during the French and Indian War is also celebrating the 250th anniversary of its founding.
Bellas said for places such as Stahlstown, Ligonier, and Bedford, these festivals are more than live music, food, and artisans — they are economic drivers that both draw new people to their small town for a one-day event and hopefully encourage them to come back on a regular basis. “Our town is really small,” he said. “We don’t have any industry here to help us with taxes, so we appreciate all the people that do come, and we encourage them to become regular customers.”
They often do because of the uniqueness of the shops here. Outside of the Orvis outfitter store, most of the shops here are stores and products you cannot find anywhere else, including several unique clothing stores and furniture shops. There are also a couple of ice cream shops, several restaurants, a bookstore, a hobby shop, a movie theater, and a bar called Joe’s that gives the customer quite the taxidermic visual treat that no other bar has ever eclipsed.
Bellas said that rural areas have experienced a variety of challenges to the social fabric of their communities in the past few decades. “Small towns have to find ways to address those challenges. One of those ways is to draw people through events that not just offer a one-time visit, but to remind the visitor that they can come back any time of the year and enjoy what we have to offer,” he said.
Ligonier does that with a Christmas event the day after Thanksgiving and an ice sculpture event in February. “The whole town fills up again with visitors when Santa comes to town, the kids get to see Santa, we have cookies and hot chocolate, and they get a bag of goodies. In the dead of winter, the ice sculpture event also draws people to enjoy the festivities,” Bellas said.
The next time you see signs outside of small towns enticing you to come to their town squares for a festival, attending one means more than getting out of the city or the suburbs for the weekend: You will be providing opportunities for small businesses, businesses that are critical in rural communities.
If you attend them, you will also be helping to generate tax revenues for their schools and infrastructure — all by buying some halushki covered in butter and sauerkraut or a necklace handcrafted by Antonetti or by coming to watch a tractor-pull with your grandchildren.
