Fall Festivals
Kearney Hub – "Fall
Festivals"
Sept 3, 1904 – Shelton to have a fall festival to celebrate the
completion of a bridge and the waterworks system and a half-mile track. Sept
20-22. Events to include:
Daily balloon ascension and parachute
drop
Moving pictures
Trapeze act
Grand Island Day & Kearney Day at the carnival
GI bringing baseball team, to play Hastings or Nor4th Platte
Races on the new track
Sept 20, 1904 – Sept 21 is Kearney Day. Midway Band to attend along
with a large group of citizens.
June 24, 1905 – Shelton to have another fall festival, four days –
Aug 22-25 – a month early to reduce chance of rainy weather. Everything free
except the races.
Sept 28, 1906 – Will Hold a Corn Carnival
–
Important Private Enterprise of Patterson & Wingard
–
Week Ending October 22
–
Cash Prize for Field and Sweet Corn, Alfalfa and Brome Grass Seed, Etc.
Patterson & Wingard announce their First Annual Corn Carnival
to be held at their spacious ware rooms in this city for a whole week
commencing October 22 and ending October 27. Idea grew out of the success of
a trade exhibit in March by the same firm. $200 in prizes for best exhibit
of field & sweet corn, alfalfa brome grass seed and exhibits by individual
farmers.
Oct 24, 1906 – Corn Carnival had begun. International Harvester and John
Deere Plow Company exhibits as well and lots of grain, corn hanging from the
ceiling along with bunting. Watson Ranch exhibit was a pyramid of baled
alfalfa with examples of the different crops grown there on the ledges of
the pile, including red, white blue corn.
Oct 27, 1906 – Prizes for the corn exhibits were listed. Samuel
Basset of Gibbon was the judge.
Oct 29, 1906 – Top prize seed corn exhibits were taken to Omaha for
state corn show.
Nov 1907 – Another corn carnival was held.
July 1908 – Another corn carnival to be held in early October before
the National Corn show in Omaha.
Aug 14, 1908 – Shelton’s three-day festival- Aug 18-20. 20 horses
entered in races with over $1,000 in prizes. First day is Kearney Day”.
Carnival in afternoon and evenings and free attractions. Can take the 8:20
a.m. train to Shelton and return on the 10:30 p.m.
Sept 23, 1908 – Corn carnival “will surely be held in November.”
Exhibits of alfalfa, wheat and oats also. Suggested that towns in the county
hold exhibits earlier and send their best ones to the Kearney event.
Donations from businessmen were being solicited to cover cost of Kearney
event and taking and maintaining an exhibit in Omaha at the national show.
Oct 7, 1908 – the Corn carnival was to be held during the month of
November on the second floor of the Roe Building over the Kearney creamery.
Exhibits would be set up and visitors could view them at their convenience.
All exhibits were to be in place by Nov. 15.
Nov 6, 1908 – Corn Carnival to open Nov. 15
May 31, 1909 – Corn Carnival committee of the commercial club was to
meet.
June 3, 1909 – Kearney to have a corn carnival in October. Committee
chaired by Patterson. To be held on Central Ave. and adjacent streets. The
exposition will include corn, grain, grasses, live stock, poultry and
machinery.” Want all goods to be made in Kearney. Suggested name “Buffalo
County Corn and Agricultural Exposition.”
Oct. 6, 1909 – Ravenna having a fall festival and carnival Oct 5-9.
Carnival provided by the National Amusement company.
Oct 14, 1909 – Buffalo County Corn Show was “in full swing” with a
long list of exhibits entries awarded first prize.
Sept 14, 1910 – Central Nebraska Fall Festival in Hastings Oct.
10-15. Music, horse show, corn show, domestic science exhibit.
Oct 3, 1910 – Corn Show and Agricultural Association Meeting to be
Nov 15-18. Add poultry exhibit. Moving pictures on farm methods and
machinery, lecturer on modern agricultural methods. Buffalo County Corn Show
and Agricultural Association had incorporated. They planned to acquire 40
acres to the edge of Kearney [didn’t say which side] where they want to
build an exposition building which could be used by merchants of the county
to exhibit their wares. “Exhibits of everything produced in the county and
illustrations of the best methods employed by farmers in the county would be
shown in this building.”
Oct 5, 1910 – November event referred to as the county fair. Horses
would be exhibited. Classes would be divided between draft horses used on
the farm and horses used in town.
Nov 3, 1910 – Nineteenth Century Club added a chrysanthemum show to
the corn show
Sept 28, 1911 – Pres. Taft to visit Hastings. A trainload of
Kearneyites to attend. The fall festival to be held the next week
Oct 9, 1911 – editorial – Modernizing the County Fair
Mayor J. W. Patterson had a Kearney
Korn Karnival that week.
There was a revival of county fairs
in many parts of Nebraska. Fremont described as an example of modernized
fair and fall festival. Fremont Tribune said such an event had to be
of interest to the farmers.
Kearney’s Corn Show held in 1908 and
1909 was a step in the right direction but there also had to be a carnival.
Maybe Patterson’s Korn Karnival would
inspire citizens to start something next year. The commercial club has
tossed around the idea of acquiring land east of Chautauqua Park to Central
for fair grounds, race track, athletic park, ball grounds.
Aug 17, 1912 – Hub asks what has become of the Fall Festival
and the County Fair and Racing Park? Committees were appointed but nothing
further has happened.
Aug 24, 1912 – Shelton Commercial Club issued invitation to Kearney
to their annual fall festival. Aug. 28 to be Kearney day.
Sept 1916 – Minden had a fall festival
Oct 10, 1916 – Corn show to be held in conjunction with rural
conference at Normal school
July 28, 1920 – Tentative plans for a fall festival including a style
show at the end of August or early Sept.
July 31, 1920 – Fall Festival to be held same time as county fair,
Sept 21-24. Parade with businessmen entering floats, many free attractions,
Aug 3, 1920 – Plans for Festival – To be staged in business part of
the city, provide evening entertainment when fair is closed.
Aug 18, 1920 – Automobile races, daylight fireworks, daily balloon
ascensions. Street exhibits open till noon, then reopen when fair closes at
6 p.m. A carload of Rocky Ford melons ordered to be given away until gone. A
style show on a promenade to be constructed on Central Ave. Booster trips to
surrounding towns within 100 miles radius to encourage attendance to both
the festival and fair.
Aug 24, 1920 – Additional attractions – airplane flights, band
concerts, one ring circus. Everything free except auto races on the final
day.
Aug. 26, 1920 – Plans for Booster trip were cancelled. It was to be
four days long and business men did not want to be away from their
businesses that long.
Oct. 10, 1922 – C of C to meet to discuss the advisability of having
a fall festival.
Sept 27, 1927 – Shelton was having a two-day community fair and
harvest festival.
About 20 cars of Kearney business and professional men and the Industrial
school band were to attend.
August, 1929 – Minden still having a fall festival
1932 – Both Amherst & Elm Creek had fall festivals, also the Baptists
Oct 28, 1938 – Have a Fall Festival in your Home – old time fall
festival being revived. Don your home with food – nuts, grapes, pumpkins,
squash, followed by several recipes
Hub – Kearney Korn Karnival
Sept 22, 1911 – Kearney to Have Korn Karnival
Patterson & Company Complete Plans for It
October 9 to 14 are the Dates
To Be Held in Kearney—Many New Features Not Found in the Former Corn
Shows—American Beet Sugar Company Will Have Exhibit.
Takes the place of corn shows of past years. To be held in company warehouse
on 21st St between Central and First Ave. Exhibitors invited from up to 50
miles away. Hog show on Friday, Oct. 13 from 7 a.m. to midnight followed by
an auction the following afternoon. American Beet Sugar to exhibit 300
varieties of sugars from all over the world. With 5000 acres of sugar beets
grown in this vicinity Patterson’s company was pushing for a sugar beet
factory.
Prizes:
Best farm collective exhibit
Best 10 ears of corn - $3, 2nd - $2, 3rd - $1
½ bushels potatoes $2, 2nd – $1
Largest potato $1
5 sugar beets - $5, $3, $2
Largest $2, 2nd $1
Best bale alfalfa,
Half bushel alfalfa seed, wheat, oats, millet
Largest pumpkin, melon
Bunch of celery
Cabbages
Radishes
Turnips
Peppers
At least 10 apples per exhibit
Tallest stalk of corn
Ladies exhibit of canned fruit, preserves & jellies
Prizes for various classifications of hogs.
Oct. 7, 1911 – Korn Karnival Begins Monday
Everything Now in Readiness—Exhibits Coming In.
Sugar Beet Exhibit Complete
Decorations are in Place—Buggy Room For Small Exhibits—Implements and New
Machines to be Shown—Additional Prize is Offered.
Catalogues & educational pamphlets, farm implements & dairy machines
including cream separators in back shed.
Oct 10, 1911 – Exhibits rival ordinary county fair.
Pumpkins & squashes “so big they might easily be mistaken for water
tanks if hollowed out”
1930’s Plattsmouth, Nebraska started holding a Korn Karnival which
continues to the present.
See also:
Buffalo County Fairs |