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By Robert Cox
RCox@cherryroad.com
Berryville’s Pioneer and Heritage Days celebration returned last year after a two-decade hiatus, and organizers said it proved to be quite popular as Carroll County residents got the opportunity to step back in time and experience daily life as it existed for the first pioneers in the county — some of whom might even be family members.
This year, they promise the event will be “bigger and better.”
“We’ll have concerts both evenings and both afternoons,” said Starlene Lee, president of the Carroll County Historical and Genealogical Society, which will host the event this weekend at the city’s Pioneer Park. “We’ll have free pony rides for the kids, the barrel train, all the vendor activities and food vendors.”
The Pioneer and Heritage Days event is scheduled to run from 7 a.m. through 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 23-24.
The event actually kicks off a day earlier with a pie-baking contest on Thursday, Sept. 22.
Like last year, the festival also will feature several area historians demonstrating pioneer skills and crafts, as well as playing various historical roles.
“We’ll have all that out there and we just hope everybody has a good time,” Lee said. “We hope it just grows and gets bigger as we continue to hold Pioneer Days.”
During the Berryville City Council meeting on Sept. 6, Mayor Tim McKinney signed a proclamation declaring the fourth weekend of September as “Pioneer and Heritage Days” in Berryville.
“We’ll have a lot of historians,” Lee said. “We’ll have all of our cabins, our printer shop, our jail, all of that will be open and people will be in there playing parts and different things. We’ll have washing machine washing time and a petting zoo out there — 4-H is helping us with the petting zoo. We’ll have all of that out there.
“We just hope everybody has a good time and hope it just grows and gets bigger as we continue to do our Pioneer Days.”
The live music portion of the event will include performances from Melody Hart, a three-time winner of Fiddler of the Year at the Branson Music Awards. She was also recently named Vocalist of the Year at the Terry Awards. Hart and her family band will take the stage at 4 p.m. Friday.
Saturday’s music lineup features Ramblin’ Creek at 11:30 a.m. and the Mountain Gypsies beginning at 1 p.m. Local groups will perform at various times both days.
The highlight of the event, at least from Lee’s perspective, will be the historical re-enactors in period costume spinning historical tales and explaining the significance of the vintage buildings in Pioneer Park, including the Little Red Schoolhouse from high atop Pension Mountain, the Newberry Cabin, the replica of a pioneer jail and the Carroll Progress printing press building.
During the city council meeting earlier this month, McKinney pointed out recent work that had been done at the park.
“You got a new roof on the mill,” McKinney said. “It looks really good.”
Lee said it took a lot of effort to get that accomplished.
“It’s taken us four years to get the money to get a new roof on,” Lee said. “We finally got that finished and it looks so nice. We’ve got a guy looking at the Little Red Schoolhouse and putting up the bell tower.”
Pioneer Park is located on Spring Street behind the Berryville Public Library. In addition to the events there, Lee said the Carroll County Heritage Center Museum, located in the old courthouse on the square, also will be open to the public.
“We come from a long line of pioneers and settlers,” Lee said. “This event gives us a chance to make history come alive again and see how people used to live. We want to keep our traditions alive.”
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