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